EDMONTON — Medical cannabis clinics are on the hunt for physicians as waiting lists grow.

Natural Health Services, a popular Canadian chain of clinics, stopped taking new patients at its Edmonton and Calgary locations in February because the influx of new clients was giving existing patients grief trying to book followup appointments.

“That just came to a head, basically,” said Natural Health Services community outreach educator Kait Shane.

“It was just a matter of really wanting to concentrate on patient care for our existing patients … They’re having problems, they’re frustrated, and we can’t have that.”

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Shane said Natural Health Services has the capacity for more patients, but a shortage of physicians is blocking that.

The chain is hiring, but is finding many doctors are hesitant to get into the cannabis business.

“The stigma is just too large, and that’s the problem,” Shane said.

Dr. Michael Verbora, medical director at Cannabinoid Medical Clinic, is facing the same issue.

He works in Toronto, and the company asked him to get his Alberta licence to curb the physician shortage, as wait lists in Edmonton and Calgary are stretching up to six weeks.

A physician who educates others in his profession about medical marijuana, Verbora said he has seen a shift in doctors’ attitudes in recent years but there is still a lot of “ignorance and stigma.”

“I still get patients who come in and say, ‘My family doctor doesn’t want me to be here because they think I’m going to be a pothead or a druggie,’ ” Verbora said.

“There’s a huge desire for education, but no one is filling the gap. And the reality is, the colleges aren’t yet supporting education or accrediting education yet.”

Tim Baxter, clinic manager at Marijuana for Trauma, said his business has enough physicians right now — its waiting list is under a month — but has faced the same problem in the past.

“I would say everyone struggles with that in this industry,” Baxter said.

Last December, the Alberta College of Family Physicians sent out a series of advisories warning there is little to no research supporting pot’s medical benefits, and consistent evidence of adverse effects such as paranoia, hallucinations, dizziness and low blood pressure.

Steve Buick, public policy adviser with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, said the lack of scientific support for marijuana’s effectiveness is the biggest reason doctors are staying away.

“Many physicians are properly skeptical of its clinical value because the clinical evidence for it is weak,” Buick said.

The college of physicians requires patients to return every three months for followup visits, which Shane said is onerous on the clinics and a big reason Natural Health Services is so jammed up.

She would like to see the followup requirement loosened, but Buick said that is not going to happen.

“There is no leeway for medical practice to be adjusted to suit the business model of any particular business,” he said.

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Shane said her clinic will be able to start taking new patients again once it gets more doctors.

In the meantime, Natural Health Services is running a phone line for palliative or chronic patients in “dire” need.

Verbora said demand for medical marijuana is continuing to grow while “copycat” clinics pop up to meet the demand.

He said some patients are coming to the Cannabinoid Medical Clinic after seeing a physician elsewhere and getting a prescription without proper education on how to use it.

“I think what’s really happening is that, over the last three to five years, while there hasn’t been substantial research being funded or coming out, unfortunately, the reality is thousands of patients have been using medical cannabis and thousands of patients are getting benefits,” Verbora said.

“The word of mouth, the observation and the anecdote is really spreading fast.”

Patients at his clinic have improved their quality of life by reducing their intake of painkillers and sleeping pills, he said.

But Verbora said supply of specific strains is already starting to dry up, and he worries that could worsen when the drug is legalized for recreational use later this year.

He said some patients have been unable to get the strain they need for the past two months.

“There is already a bit of a supply and demand mismatch in the medical market, and when the recreational market comes online, I think that is going to pose a problem,” he said.

Verbora said more research will lead to better insurance coverage, which he hopes will eventually lead to a higher demand on medical over recreational pot.

Bringing more pharmacies into the industry could also help secure supplies for patients who need the drug for medical reasons, he said.

“These are people who have debilitating conditions, who are very sick. And I think that it’s only fair that they get access to cannabis first,” Verbora said.

While some medical users might move to the recreational market for convenience sake, Verbora suspects some will go in the other direction and join the lineups at clinics once legalization has eased the stigma.

“The reality is a lot of these recreational users are self-medicating. A lot of them are trying to treat things like anxiety or pain on their own without a physician’s help,” he said.

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