Dan Scotland lives in northeastern Massachusetts and uses medical marijuana to treat insomnia, anxiety and sleep issues.

He used to go regularly to Patriot Care in Lowell — but then the medical dispensary began selling to the recreational market.

“When they went adult use, their stock pretty much dwindled,” said Scotland, who also runs a podcast about marijuana. “A lot of products have been funneled to the adult use side.”

Since the dispensary opened up for recreational sales, Scotland said, “Every time I’d check their menu before going, they didn’t have anything I needed.”

Scotland’s complaint is not unique. As medical marijuana dispensaries have begun selling to the newly legal recreational market, medical marijuana patients say they have had mixed experiences buying marijuana at dispensaries that sell to both markets. While some dispensaries have maintained adequate inventory, many patients say they have fewer choices for medical marijuana than they used to.

While patients can buy off the recreational menu, they must pay taxes and their purchases are not recorded in their medical records.

“Some dispensaries ... have very similar menus from the medical and adult use side,” said Nichole Snow, executive director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance. “Other dispensaries seem to be having a problem with managing the patient supply safety net, and their way of going about it is exploiting a vulnerable population.”

Mary-Alice Miller, chief risk officer of Patriot Care’s parent company Columbia Care, said the dispensary, which opened for recreational sales in March, is still working to understand the demand for products in the recreational and medical markets.

“Using these data, we can properly allocate supply from our vertically integrated cultivation and manufacturing facility to our medical patients to be sure we are meeting their unmet needs,” she said in a statement. The dispensary sells its own products on the medical market and buys wholesale to supplement its recreational supply.

Regulations written by the Cannabis Control Commission require medical marijuana dispensaries that open for recreational sales to set aside 35% of their inventory for medical patients for the first six months. After that, the amount they must set aside is based on their sales from the previous six months.

The recreational market is bigger than the medical market, and dispensaries can potentially charge more for recreational products. Lower sales of medical products, meanwhile, mean lower inventory requirements — so, if dispensaries can divert customers to the recreational side, that could limit the supply they have to set aside for medical patients.

State law requires that the reserved supply reflect the actual types and strains of marijuana purchased by patients in the past six months, or that dispensaries offer a reasonable substitution.

It does not require that the medical supply be comparable to the recreational supply. Nor does it require a dispensary to transfer specific products from the recreational market to the medical market.

The Cannabis Control Commission says it investigates every patient complaint, and conducts inspections of facilities to make sure they adhere to state laws.

Dispensary owners say they are continuing to prioritize patient needs.

Fancy Wade, a spokesman for Cultivate in Leicester, said the dispensary has a “mirrored inventory” policy, where whatever is on the adult use menu is also available to medical patients. “We do not have products exclusively for recreational customers,” Wade said. “We do, however, have some products that are exclusively for medical patients that are more suited to a medical patient’s needs.”

According to Cultivate’s official policy, if a medical patient requests something that is not on the medical menu, staff can transfer the product to the medical system, and the patient would not have to wait in line or pay tax.

However, Jeremiah MacKinnon said when he bought an item at Cultivate off the recreational menu using his medical card, the purchase did not show up on his electronic patient record. He says the dispensary discounted a recreational product and listed it as a recreational sale, rather than moving it to the medical system.

Trevor, a medical marijuana patient from Florence who asked that his last name not be used, said he checked Cultivate’s menu and saw many more strains listed on the recreational menu than the medical menu. He emailed Cultivate to find out whether he could buy from the recreational menu, and they told him he would have to pay the tax.

Similar complaints are widespread among dispensaries.

MacKinnon said at Sanctuary Medicinals in Gardner, he found six concentrates on the recreational menu and one on the medical menu. He was told that to buy from the recreational menu, he would have to wait in the recreational line and pay tax.

Frank Shaw, of Ipswich, said the day he went to Patriot Care in Lowell, it was offering three flower options with CBD on the recreational menu and one on the medical menu. When he went to Temescal Wellness in Hudson, he was told they had run out of a strain on the medical side, even though it was available on the recreational side.

“Isn’t this what the [patient] supply prevention was supposed to prevent against?” Shaw said.

A reporter recently called Cultivate, Patriot Care in Lowell and Sanctuary Medicinals and asked if someone with a medical card could buy from the recreational menu. The person answering the phone at each dispensary said a patient buying from the recreational menu would have to pay tax.

(This is contrary to the policy written on Cultivate’s menu, which says a medical patient can purchase anything from the recreational menu, with a 10-minute wait to allow the product to be transferred from one system to the other.)

Josh Weaver, chief financial officer of Sanctuary Medicinals, said the dispensary is “is committed to providing our medical patients with the most diverse menu of product at all times.” Weaver said although it is “rare,” it is possible for lab results to be delayed, which can lead to delays in restocking products.

Anthony Crescenzi of Wakefield needs different strains of marijuana at different times of day to regulate his ADHD. He has had more trouble finding the specific strains he wants since the recreational market opened up. When he asked for one brand of sativa at Alternative Therapies Group in Salem, he was told it is only available on the recreational side. “They have abundance and we have none,” he said. “It’s supposed to be the other way around.”

Mike Crawford, a medical marijuana patient and legalization activist, said he has heard from numerous patients that there are not enough products available, or that stores are sold out of a product in the medical market.

Between the lack of products and the price, which is higher than buying on the street, Crawford said he has gone back to buying marijuana unregulated, from friends.