Anyone who reads the news knows that the war on cannabis is rapidly ending, whether they support it or not. Cannabis is emerging from the shadows and late night parking lots of Walmarts and Taco Bells across the country into the daylight of Main Street America. Patients are gradually coming out of the cannabis closet, and in doing so, they are proving how difficult it really is to stereotype a cannabis user. How do you stigmatize a group so diverse that it includes veterans, teachers, grandmothers, mechanics, CEOs, epileptic children, athletes, millionaires and housewives? Even former firefighters, as is the case with Patrick Rimoshytus of Warren.
Patrick is the co-founder of a unique nonprofit resource center called Green Cross where card holding patients from any legal medical marijuana state can pay a small membership fee and utilize the resources GCRI (Green Cross of Rhode Island) has to offer. Membership grants a patient access to a range of classes including cooking, making tinctures and oil concentrates, growing and more in the near future. RI and MA patients are also able to find and appoint a caregiver who can meet their needs through GCRI’s caregiver registry. If they choose, patients can acquire medicine with their registered caregiver on site as well. It should be noted, however, that Green Cross itself does not sell any medicine.
Patrick, officially the care coordinator at GCRI, and his business partner, Dan Barboza, membership director, are both patients-turned-advocates who found cannabis to be a preferable alternative to prescription opiates for treating various conditions. Patrick’s goal is to build a strong and educated cannabis community in Rhode Island. Green Cross has worked closely with RIPAC (RI Patient Advocacy Coalition) to get their nonprofit started, and ultimately would like to connect with any other local cannabis businesses for the benefit of the entire community.
One of the most important factors about Green Cross are the personal relationships they develop with their members. For many patients, the quality of service, availability of products and affordability of medicine are significant issues with local compassion centers. Access to the right types of cannabis at reasonable prices are frequent obstacles. Patrick and Dan kept this in mind when they founded their nonprofit and have set a standard price of $200 or less for an ounce of cannabis, a price that is extremely competitive with compassion centers. In their eyes, that’s an ethical price for medicine and the costs involved in producing it. It’s also a bold statement to competitors who may be more interested in profit than the health and well-being of their patients. It will certainly encourage an increased demand for growers as patients realize that they do have resources and are not limited to only a handful of options for acquiring their medicine.
Patrick and Dan also aim to work with their members to track each individual’s cannabis usage in order to improve the effectiveness of the medicine. For instance, one patient with chronic back pain could be consuming a strain that is best for anxiety and therefore may not be receiving the relief he or she needs, or could be using it in the wrong quantities or at the wrong times of day. This is where they would step in and offer guidance. Currently, there are very few outside resources for patients when they inevitably have questions or concerns about cannabis. Through their services, Patrick and Dan hope to fill some of the gaps in the medicinal marijuana program and offer support, education and information to patients and non-patients alike.
There is one section of Green Cross that is open to the public so anyone can come in and ask questions. It includes a retail shop with vaporizers, merchandise and a variety of fully legal hemp-based CBD products including salves, patches, lotions and oils for those who are seeking some of the benefits of medical marijuana without any psychoactive effects.
Green Cross can be found on Facebook, at greencrossri.org or by phone at 401-337-5876. They are open Monday through Saturday and are located at 654 Metacom Avenue in Warren.
