Michigan Medical Marijuana Live, Interactive Statistics

http://www.denalihealthcaremi.com/michigan-medical-marijuana-statistics/

Independent interactive statistics on the MMMA

This is a project we put together- still adding data but the largest sampling of Michigan Medical Marijuana patients not controlled by the state. Just a little bonus to the community. Interesting to see the difference between what the state reports and what we see.

Once all the data is in, the statistics will be updated live. This is already the largest collection of data outside the state controlled database and should be done in a week. There are already several thousand data points. Patients are reported by age, zip code and condition. There is no patient identifiable information in database, just basic demographics.

Key features-

• Average age is in the 45-54 age group, not 24 as the state reports.
• Differences between the percentages for each condition between our data and the state data (PTSD is underreported by the state, so is cancer and several other conditions).
• Age distributions for each condition (not available on state data).

Dr. Bob

i like the patient age range pie chart, can you add a similar pie chart right next to it showing the demographics of michigan... i'm assuming it will show that the demographics of patients match that of the state.

"patient age range (all locations, all clinics)"

for ptsd what are you using as a metric for the cases in michigan?

would it be better to use this count?
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/magazine/issues/winter09/articles/winter09pg10-14.html
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that PTSD afflicts:
Almost 31 percent of Vietnam veterans
As many as 10 percent of Gulf War (Desert Storm) veterans
11 percent of veterans of the war in Afghanistan
20 percent of Iraqi war veterans


theres also some studies done on fostered children who end up having ptsd in adulthood.
"Foster children are twice as likely as U.S. war vets to be afflicted with Stress Disorder"
http://www.michigancasa.org/uploads/1/6/4/6/16460156/psychological_needs_of_traumatized_children.pdf

many rape victims have to deal with ptsd as well, how many rapes per year in michigan?

its possible to do real counts of ptsd, we just have to identify and count the vulnerable populations and refer to the medical studies to find the numbers.

where do you get the average mmma age reported by the state?

the only thing i see about average age is your testimony on 4851
http://house.mi.gov/SessionDocs/2011-2012/Testimony/Committee14-3-7-2012-1.pdf

i remember there was maybe a senator or something who claimed the average age was 25 in a newspaper article, but somehow i doubt that is the official state statistic. LARA has done its best to hide any and all information about the program anyway.

passmethelid said:

for ptsd what are you using as a metric for the cases in michigan?

would it be better to use this count?
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/magazine/issues/winter09/articles/winter09pg10-14.html
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that PTSD afflicts:
Almost 31 percent of Vietnam veterans
As many as 10 percent of Gulf War (Desert Storm) veterans
11 percent of veterans of the war in Afghanistan
20 percent of Iraqi war veterans


theres also some studies done on fostered children who end up having ptsd in adulthood.
"Foster children are twice as likely as U.S. war vets to be afflicted with Stress Disorder"
http://www.michigancasa.org/uploads/1/6/4/6/16460156/psychological_needs_of_traumatized_children.pdf

many rape victims have to deal with ptsd as well, how many rapes per year in michigan?

its possible to do real counts of ptsd, we just have to identify and count the vulnerable populations and refer to the medical studies to find the numbers.

Click to expand...

Let's not forget Legal Abuse Syndrome and the fact that it, like the justice system in general, threatens the well being of every patient and caregiver. I've seen far too many people changed by what had occurred in courtrooms, just like I've witnessed soldiers changed by war.

good point, people get ptsd from police raids too. how many police raids in michigan each year?

Those are some very interesting ideas.

As for the average age of the patients, Schuette and like are fond of saying 'the average mmj patient is an 18 year old with a hang nail'. As recently as April of last year at the annual meeting of the American Society of Addiction Medicine in Austin, TX the speakers quoted the state as saying that the average age of medical marijuana patients in Michigan was 24, and that more than 95% got their cards for pain. It resulted in laughter from the audience and pissed me off royally, because I know better. I designed this page to prove it based on our database.

The purpose of the page is to provide patients and the news media with an alternative and independent source of information about the patient of the MMMA. Most are shocked to hear our average patient is 51.

Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about the underrepresentation of certain groups in the MMMA....

http://www.denalihealthcaremi.com/the-forgotten-medical-marijuana-patients/

In it I compare the percentage of AIDS patients in the program as reported by the state vs the number of AIDS patients in Michigan. Same with pain and cancer, and discuss some of the reasons they are not involved in the program.

Note too, that in our practice, we will not certify a patient for PTSD unless they have documentation of a formal diagnosis from a mental health professional and are in treatment. Yet still our rate is 8 times the reported rate from the state. Our rate of cancer patients, though still small, is 1.5 times the rate reported by the state. We need to direct our efforts to getting the word about mmj into those communities.

Dr. Bob

passmethelid said:

for ptsd what are you using as a metric for the cases in michigan?

would it be better to use this count?
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/magazine/issues/winter09/articles/winter09pg10-14.html
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that PTSD afflicts:
Almost 31 percent of Vietnam veterans
As many as 10 percent of Gulf War (Desert Storm) veterans
11 percent of veterans of the war in Afghanistan
20 percent of Iraqi war veterans


theres also some studies done on fostered children who end up having ptsd in adulthood.
"Foster children are twice as likely as U.S. war vets to be afflicted with Stress Disorder"
http://www.michigancasa.org/uploads/1/6/4/6/16460156/psychological_needs_of_traumatized_children.pdf

many rape victims have to deal with ptsd as well, how many rapes per year in michigan?

its possible to do real counts of ptsd, we just have to identify and count the vulnerable populations and refer to the medical studies to find the numbers.

Click to expand...

Nice information, our metric that we are using is the actual number of certifications for PTSD since we began using MichiganMarijuanaForms.com to create and document our certification. To date, the largest paper written on the demographics of medical marijuana patients (from a group of 7 offices in California in 2010 or so) had data on 1900 patients. We currently have data on over 5000. We are entering the last of the data into the stats page and then I'll be writing a paper for publication.

We are already seeing changes. When the state first started reporting % for each condition, I reviewed it and found the numbers added up to 103% (they double counted HIV and wasting). This showed they were only counting one condition per patient, and given a choice of a patient with cancer and nausea, which one do you think they put in their stats? yeah nausea because they wanted to minimize the program. I called them out on it with the Forgotten Patients article.

Now they actually are reporting better numbers and multiple conditions per patient, but it is good to do a head to head comparison with MY numbers to see if they are being honest.

Dr. Bob

The Health Professions Licensing Division in the Bureau of Health Care Services at the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs has not issued any statistics on the average age of the patients licensed under the michigan medical marihuana program.

to my knowledge.

schuette? random police sending letters to the editors of local papers? sure they may have made up some statistics. but the state of michigan has not issued any age statistics publically.

thanks for your statistics dr bob, it is important.

at least with these stats we can have a more accurate way of refuting them when they do.

Dr. Bob

https://newrepublic.com/article/116156/medical-marijuana-users-typical-profile Did find this discussion of 348 or so patients in Michigan, but you are correct I cannot locate anywhere an average age put out by the state. This statistical page may be of some help to counter some of the 'unofficial' numbers put out by the anti's.

Dr. Bob

These are the latest (Jan 4, 2016) numbers from the state....

Name of Debilitating Condition

% of Patients Afflicted With Debilitating Condition*


Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)


0.38%

Alzheimers


0.05%

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

0.04%


Cachexia

0.83%

Cancer

4.47%


Crohn's disease

1.11%

Glaucoma

1.45%

Hepatitis C

1.60%

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

0.40%


Nail Patella


0.02%

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

2.97%

Seizures - Epilepsy


2.12%

Severe and Chronic pain

92.86%

Severe and Persistent Muscle Spasms


23.39%

Severe Nausea

8.95%

Wasting Syndrome


Link to report is

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/lara/Medical_Marihuana_Act_-_FY_2015_Statistical_Report_MCL_333.26426_510088_7.pdf

wow, thats the first time since the 2 year cards that LARA has reported the correct numbers. i'm amazed.

for the past 3 years they have only reported the cards issued during the 1 year.
which means with two year cards, you'll get a bunch of people registering only once per two years.
thus the counts in LARA stats were only half of the total.

thats why all of the newspapers said "patient drop in medical marijuana" , remember?

Yes, they were not counting the carry over from the previous year.

Originally the program was run by a former deputy that I suspect hated medical marijuana. That is why the cards took 8-12 months to be issued. A new guy took over a couple of years ago. I don't know his feelings on cannabis, but I do know he takes his job very seriously and works hard to do a good job. We are getting better stats, the cards are coming out, and overall things are a lot smoother.

Dr. Bob

Ok the comparisons have been updated to reflect the latest state data. Data entry is 2/3 completed.

passmethelid said:

i like the patient age range pie chart, can you add a similar pie chart right next to it showing the demographics of michigan... i'm assuming it will show that the demographics of patients match that of the state.

"patient age range (all locations, all clinics)"

Click to expand...

that is an idea, I'll find some data and pass it along.

Dr. Bob

all data is entered stats are live.

Dr. Bob