When local patients in Dalton suffering from conditions ranging from cancer to Parkinson’s disease are prescribed medications for their diagnoses, Hannah Jones said those prescriptions can “often be sedating, addictive or cause lots of problems that we all well know.”

“So, if you’re able to avoid or minimize negative side effects in favor of having a natural approach that’s effective, a lot of people really can get behind that and understand the value of that,” said Jones, who has spent almost 19 years as a registered nurse in the community.

Jones said one of the “tools in the toolbox” for certain ailments an individual may be treating can come from medical cannabis. In the summer, Jones partnered with local medical doctor Juan Gonzalez and pharmacist Jason Sneed to open the first medical cannabis pharmacy in Dalton, known as The Healing Card and Elevated Rx at 1507 Professional Court.

A local nurse since 2007, Jones said she worked for 10 years at Hamilton Medical Center before stepping away “from the full-time nursing gig” and opening up a wellness spa inside The Mill at Crown Garden called Ivolution.

“We do things like vitamin infusions, peptide therapy, that kind of thing,” she said. “I started that during (the COVID-19 pandemic) in 2020. While I was working at Hamilton, I began working with Dr. Juan Gonzalez, who is a local neurologist, and I was running the stroke program as my last job at Hamilton, so that’s how we became acquainted.”

Jones said Gonzalez had shared his interest in cannabis medicine and had “prescribed the prescription form of cannabis for some of his patients, and wanted us to look into a business model on how to bring this service to Northwest Georgia.”

“At the same time, Jason Sneed was working on the same thing, bringing the cannabis pharmacy to Northwest Georgia through a partnership with Botanical Sciences in Marietta, which they’re the provider of the product,” she said. “And then we joined forces in June or July. Dr. Gonzalez and I do The Healing Card (thehealingcard.org), which allows people to sign up for a cannabis card with the registry, and that’s required to go to the pharmacy to purchase the product. (Sneed’s) pharmacy is called Elevated Rx.”

Through the partnership, Jones said clients “first come to The Healing Card to see if they qualify, and the steps to get the card are fairly easy.”

“If they have one of the approved diagnoses, and over 90% of people qualify under a diagnosis of pain or (post-traumatic stress disorder), then we take down their medical information and then we upload it into the state’s THC registry that is owned by the (Georgia) Department of Public Health,” she said. “Then the Department of Public Health actually mails the card, so the card comes to the patient’s residence, and the turnaround time is usually pretty quick. It’s one or two business days. And then they’re able to shop for the medicine at the pharmacy once they have their card in hand.”

Along with chronic pain and PTSD, other qualifying diagnoses include cancers, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Crohn’s disease, mitochondrial disease, Parkinson’s disease, sickle cell disease, Tourette’s syndrome, autism spectrum disorder (when a patient is 18 years of age or older), epidermolysis bullosa (a rare genetic disorder causing extremely fragile skin and mucous membranes to blister and tear from minor friction or trauma), Alzheimer’s disease, AIDs, peripheral neuropathy, intractable pain or if a patient is in an inpatient or outpatient hospice program.

“The program itself has actually been around in Georgia for 10 years,” said Jones. “It’s just that people were utilizing it more in the Metro Atlanta area and Savannah. Nobody in Northwest Georgia was really knowledgeable about it until recently, so even though the program’s been around since 2015, people in Northwest Georgia are just now getting access to it because we have the pharmacy now. You could be a card holder in Northwest Georgia for 10 years, but you were going to have to drive to Marietta to find the closest dispensary. So, that was a barrier.”

Jones said the “lack of awareness and knowledge in the medical community” was also a contributing factor to the underabundance of medical cannabis pharmacies in North Georgia.

“There were hardly any physicians really willing to sign people up for the card,” she said. “So, we’re helping to bridge that gap and to hopefully break the stigma of medical cannabis. This stuff is highly regulated. It’s very different from the mom and pop smoke shops that we see around town.”

She said the chain of custody for the product is “severe and strong.”

“(The Georgia Department of Public Health) only gave out a handful of licenses for growers of marijuana, and most of them are in South Georgia,” she said. “Botanical Sciences actually grow the product in South Georgia. They harvest the oil from the plants and then they make the products from the oil. The oil has all the THC compounds and all the CBD compounds. I think there’s 15 chemical compounds altogether in the oil, as opposed to these smoke shops that are really piecemeal based on loopholes and legality.”

Jones said many “mom and pop smoke shops” will have products that consist of CBD or THCA (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid), “which is just one part of the plant.”

“This is really the whole plant, and there’s lots of medical benefits from having the whole plant as far as treating pain, PTSD, anxiety, that kind of thing,” she said. “They harvest the oil and then they make different products from the oil. Straight oil is called tincture. They also make a variety of gummies, chocolate drops, lozenges and topical lotions, which are very effective. You can even put the oil in a capsule and take it by mouth like a pill. Some of them are shorter acting, some are longer acting, but the great thing about (Sneed’s) setup is he is required to be in the pharmacy, so he is able to give a direct patient consultation every time to every client to help them really guide, based off their qualifying diagnosis, which product is probably going to be best suited for them and where to start. We all preach to start with a low dose and go slow.”

In the short timeframe the pharmacy has been available to the community, Jones said they have seen “a major difference already in certain cases.”

“We knew it was going to be effective because that’s what the literature has been saying for years, but it’s really cool to be able to see in practice,” she said. “(Sneed) has seen individuals that have been on chronic pain (medications) for years be able to decrease their narcotics usage and come off of it in some instances, which is really encouraging to see. And then another thing that has happened is we’re getting a lot of cancer referrals because the cancer doctors typically prescribe Marinol, which is like the prescription form of marijuana, for their cancer patients. It helps with nausea, increasing appetite, that kind of thing, but it’s been on back order for months and there’s no telling when it’s going to come off of back order. So, we’re helping bridge the gap to get the cannabis substance medication to these clients that are unable to get it otherwise.”

Jones said the pharmacy currently uses oils, capsules and topical applications as opposed to smoke, which is currently illegal in the state.

“(Georgia) legislators are supposed to be voting in January on the use of vapes,” she said. “Right now, we don’t have any smokable cannabis that is legal. All smoke is illegal. If it passes in January, Botanical Sciences thinks the vapes will be ready in July. Of course, they’re already working on getting the product ready in hopes that it’s going to pass in January, but that would be the next step.”

In regards to “hesitation” by local pharmacies and the general public as it pertains to cannabis in the medical sense, Jones said many of those hesitations are legitimate.

“That’s because the field has been so unregulated over the years, so what you get at one mom and pop smoke shop might be effective or you may have bad side effects from it, and it’s going to be different than the product you buy at the next smoke shop down the road,” she said. “It’s just not been reliable. But this, we have a very regulated, strict chain of custody. This is tested. You’re going to get the same product every time. It’s just more reliable in that way, which I think helps break the stigma to an extent.”

She said that also includes “people realizing the medical benefit of the medication.”

“I think many people already have an understanding that it does help with pain and anxiety, but it also helps with autism symptoms and the spasms in Parkinson’s (disease),” she said. “With Parkinson’s patients, the tremors really affect their quality of life and cannabis is very good at treating the tremors. And then you can dose it to where you’re not inebriated, but you can’t necessarily dose it that way if you’re getting stuff off the street or from a mom and pop smoke shop. Another thing that (Sneed) and I do is we encourage our clients to journal as they’re taking a new product for the first time. So, if we start them on maybe half of a gummy, then we’re wanting them to take notes about how it affected them and how they feel, so they know next time what works and what doesn’t. So, I think that is helpful.”

Jones said being the first medical cannabis pharmacy in not only Dalton but Northwest Georgia is “a big deal.”

“While medical cannabis has been legal in the state for 10 years, I think it’s taken so long to make its way to North Georgia because, with anything along those lines, you just have to have a champion for that,” she said. “And I think that (Sneed), Gonzalez and I were just the first ones to step up and fill that role of being champions for medical cannabis and helping with awareness and education, and providing a much needed service.”

Jones said she believes that “service” is “only going to grow from here.”

“We do expect to get smokable marijuana eventually, and the reason you want smokable marijuana from a medical standpoint is that it’s quick onset,” she said. “If somebody’s in the middle of a panic attack and they take a gummy, it’s going to take an hour to get relief. But with medical smoke, you’re going to get relief instantaneously. So, that’s why we want smoke for medical reasons, we just don’t have it yet. But it’s definitely coming.”

According to Jones and Gonzalez, the “biggest drivers” of the service are patients with cancer, pain, PTSD, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

“We can sign families up for caregiver cards,” Jones said. “For instance, hospice is an approved diagnosis. It doesn’t matter why you’re on hospice, but if you’re on hospice, you can qualify for medical cannabis. But at end of life (care), you’re often unable to drive yourself to the pharmacy to buy the medicine, so your caregiver would hold a card for you and they would then go to the pharmacy and buy the medication for the patient in hospice.”

Jones said the pharmacy is also able to extend service to “qualified minors, obviously with a lot of discretion.”

“We have a handful of parents who have a caregiver card,” she said. “These are going to be kids with very complex medical problems, seizures, autism, aggressive behaviors, insomnia, that kind of thing. This is just in the medical sense and it’s often in conjunction with the child’s neurologist. A lot of these kids go to Chattanooga because that’s the closest pediatric neurologist. Since they’re in Tennessee, they don’t have a medical cannabis program, but for the clients that live in Georgia, we get some referrals from them.”

Jones said the service has even improved her wellbeing, stating the public should “at the very least be aware” of the new pharmacy and its function.

“I have a chronic disease of type 1 diabetes,” she said. “I’ve had it since I was 10 years old and I do have some neuropathy in my feet from it. I can treat it with some topical lotion or a gummy and get pain relief without feeling inebriated. Now, we’re not here to say that we’re going to replace everybody’s narcotics or medications with cannabis, but if it’s an effective tool to have in your toolbox, you want to be aware of it.”