coloradoan.com
August 1, 2009

Spike in younger medical marijuana registrants concerns state

BY BOBBY MAGILL
BobbyMagill@coloradoan.com

If you’re a man under 30 years old and on the Colorado medical marijuana registry, Colorado health officials may look at you with a skeptical eye.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said Thursday the number of male medical marijuana registrants under age 30 has risen sharply in the last year, and state officials suspect some doctors prescribing the drug may be doing so improperly.

Larimer County — fifth in Colorado for medical marijuana patients — has seen a dramatic rise in medical marijuana registrants of all ages, more than doubling from 312 registrants at the end of July 2008 to 864 by the end of June 2009, according to registry statistics.

State Health Department spokesman Mark Salley said statistics showing the number of Larimer County registrants under 30 are unavailable.

Most of the younger men in the registry are being prescribed marijuana for chronic or severe pain.

The problem, said Colorado Chief Medical Officer Ned Calonge, is that few men under 30 should be experiencing such pain.

In the year from July 2008 through June 2009, the state added 1,792 men under 30 to the registry, 89 percent of whom had been diagnosed with severe pain, Calonge said in a statement. Those men represent 22 percent of all registry applicants during that year.

During the last six months of 2008, the state received an average of 70 applications per month for men under 30 with severe pain. In May 2009, the state received 264 applications and in June it received 364 applications.

More details in Sunday's Coloradoan and at Coloradoan.com.