As an emergency room doctor, Kyle Kingsley felt frustration at seeing the drug-addicted patients return to his ER over and over, trying to find a doctor who would prescribe them more opioid painkillers.
Those pain pills cause twice as many deaths in Minnesota as street heroin, even though both are made from the same plant, the poppy. Now Kingsley is hoping to use a different plant — cannabis — to divert pain patients from opioids to marijuana drugs. But the ambitious plan will require approval from one of the toughest bureaucracies on the planet: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“This is a real alternative,” said Kingsley, whose Minneapolis company Vireo Health LLC is one of two in Minnesota with a license to cultivate medical marijuana and convert it to oils and pills. “Anytime you are talking about potential FDA-track medicines, it takes years for this to happen. But in parallel to our current production of medications in Minnesota and New York, we’re going to pursue these FDA endeavors.”