Weed is legal, but not available anywhere except in pharmacies. The company Algea Care is now advertising cannabis recipes for 1 euro.
“Meet me at the doctor at 4:20, I'll get a prescription for weed / Thick Gorilla Glue batch from pharmacies in a jar,” raps Antifuchs. The rapper describes a trend that is increasing rapidly due to partial legalization. Smoking weed has been permitted under certain conditions since April 1st.
Cannabis clubs won't be able to start dispensing for several months. If you're currently growing grass, you won't be able to harvest until June at the earliest. Being a patient is currently the only way to get cannabis outside of the black market.
Telemedicines prescribe cannabis with little effort
Since April 1st, cannabis is no longer considered a narcotic, but rather a prescription medication. Since then, doctors have been able to prescribe cannabis more easily. An initial consultation via video call and an e-prescription are sufficient. Several telemedicine platforms appear to be well prepared for this change. According to its own information, Algea Care is the leader with over 20,000 patients, but other companies also openly advertise the issuing of cannabis prescriptions.
“What did you give as your diagnosis?” – “Sleep disorders.”
In the Reddit forum “German Trees”, several users share their experiences with telemedicine from various platforms. They give each other tips to convince the doctor that they are a cannabis patient. “What did you give as your diagnosis?” asked a user on April 6th. The answer: “Sleep problems.”
Many of them seem to use this reason. The disorder is easier to fake than, say, an ADHD diagnosis, but it could also be the truth. Most seem to be successful with this information among telemedicine professionals, as can be seen from the comments.
When we stated for our research on the telemedicine platform Algea Care that we had had minor sleep disorders for less than three months, we were offered an appointment. However, we would have to wait until mid-April for an initial consultation with a doctor; consultation appointments are not available earlier. Without this individual initial consultation, no patient can receive a prescription for medical cannabis through Algea Care, the company tells us.
When asked by
BuzzFeed News Germany
from
IPPEN.MEDIA
, each doctor “decides completely independently whether and which medicine to prescribe in order to best serve the well-being of the patient.” According to CEO Julian Wichmann, Algea Care is a “pure service company” that refers patients to doctors. We don't know whether we would have ultimately received a cannabis prescription for minor sleep disorders.
“Assuming that patients with sleep disorders behave deceptively shows the stigmatization”
But would that actually be so reprehensible? According to Algea Care, medical cannabis is “considered useful in the treatment of sleep disorders.” “Assuming that patients with sleep disorders are engaging in deceptive behavior or even misuse shows the unfortunately existing stigmatization and unequal treatment of medical cannabis in comparison to other prescription medications.”
The company emphasizes: In many cases, treating sleep disorders with medical cannabis is the more suitable medication
Form of therapy because it “can be associated with significantly fewer side effects in the long term”.
This view is controversial among scientists and doctors.
Since partial legalization, initial consultations only cost 1 euro for a short time
Algea Care also calls its 1 euro campaign, which it launched in April, a “sign against the ongoing stigmatization” of medical cannabis. Initial consultations therefore only cost one euro for a month instead of the previous 50 euros. The rapper Xatar promotes the campaign on Instagram. His video has more than 12,00 views (as of April 12). Neither Xatar nor its management would like to comment on this to
BuzzFeed News Germany
. Since the campaign, the company has received
increasingly poor reviews
on the independent review portal
Trustpilot
. “Algea Care is clearly no longer interested in patients and medicine. As an existing patient, you feel ripped off,” writes user WS. Those affected speak of long waiting times, which Algea Care
BuzzFeed News Deutschland
confirms. There were also server failures, which, according to the company, were quickly resolved. They were “downright surprised by the huge rush and the numerous new registrations”.
Cannabis patients “are pissed off” and fear pharmacies will be empty
Since April 1st, pharmacies have observed a sharp increase in private prescriptions for cannabis issued by telemedicines. A large part comes from Algea Care and another company, “but other telemedicine providers are also involved and will conquer the market here.” This was announced by the Association of Cannabis Supplying Pharmacies (VCA) when asked by
BuzzFeed News Germany
. Exactly how high the increase is in percentage terms is currently unclear, as it varies from pharmacy to pharmacy.
The Association of German Cannabis Patients (BDCan) is sounding the alarm. “We’re pissed off,” says Michael Kambeck, the association’s political spokesman. He is angry at the “amount of pseudo-patients,” as he says. “As a result, real cannabis patients will probably no longer be able to get the strains to which they are precisely prepared in a few weeks.”
According to the VCA, there is currently no shortage of cannabis medication in pharmacies. Pharmacist and VCA managing director Christiane Neubaur does not fear that the property will become vacant any time soon. “Whether this should be the case in the future with a few varieties such as Bedrocan remains to be seen.” Here the import quantity is limited by the cannabis authority of the Netherlands.
Some of the strains sold are “harmful” to real cannabis patients
According to the experience of pharmacists, telemedicines mainly prescribe cannabis flowers and not cannabis medication in tablet form, as the VCA reports. The flowers have names like “Strawberry Ice” and “Orange Kush Cake”. “It’s not medicine,” says Kambeck, who is a cannabis patient himself. In a statement from the BDCan, a pharmacist also said that it “pains her to give away such goods.”
According to an analysis by the association, the flowers available on the market have increased from around 100 varieties in 2022 to currently over 400. “Of these, 259 varieties have only been tested according to lax pharmacopoeia standards and may therefore contain high microbiological contamination that is unsuitable for inhalation and can be harmful to health, especially for immunocompromised patients.”
Pharmacies have also prepared for partial legalization. One of them has the Amnesia Haze variety. For patients who really suffer from the dissociative disorder amnesia, this sounds like a bad joke, the BDCan makes clear. “Amnesia is a serious illness!”