COLUMBUS, Ohio – The State Medical Board of Ohio is expected to consider Wednesday whether anxiety and autism spectrum disorder should be added to the list of conditions for which a person can obtain medical marijuana.

There are 21 conditions today that can qualify a patient for medical marijuana – including cancer, chronic and severe or intractable pain and sickle cell anemia.

The medial board has the option to begin considerations Wednesday and vote on anxiety and autism spectrum disorder at a later monthly meeting. Or it could decide the entire matter Wednesday.

If the medical board adds anxiety and autism, the decision would take effect immediately. That could mean relief for the up to 13.3 percent of the people estimated to have anxiety disorders. Twenty-eight percent of people suffer from anxiety disorders throughout their lifetimes.

A medical board decision could also help the roughly 1 child of 59 with autism spectrum disorder, a condition estimated to affect 10,000 Ohio families.

“I don’t think those are controversial additions at all and I think the state would be well served to add them,” said Thomas Rosenberger, associate director of the Ohio Medical Cannabis Cultivators Association, one of the petitioners for autism spectrum and anxiety.

In May, a four-member committee within the medical board had vetted a list of conditions that people had requested to be added. They recommended the full, 12-member board approve autism spectrum and anxiety and rejected petitions to add depression, insomnia and opioid use disorder to the list of qualifying conditions.

In making their decision, the committee reviewed over 200 pages of medical studies, data and arguments why the conditions should – or in some cases, should not – be added to the list. They hired experts who had experience in research or treatment of people with the conditions.

While the experts were split on marijuana’s efficacy for conditions such as depression, they were unanimous on anxiety and autism spectrum.

“When you look at all these conditions – autism spectrum and anxiety especially – there’s a lot of clinical and observational data that have been put together in the U.S. and other countries, like Israel, and depending on the condition, some of the clinical data even indicates what kind of ratios of CBD and THC” would benefit people, Rosenberger said.

In early April, the state reported there were 28,275 people on the patient and caregiver registry, including 128 patients with a terminal diagnosis. People have been legally obtaining medical marijuana in Ohio since Jan. 16, when the first state-licensed dispensaries opened.