[Blackburn News – Adelle Loiselle] A new partnership between a Windsor cannabis lounge and Medical Marijuana Services will help match patients who could benefit from medical marijuana with doctors willing to prescribe it.

Patients can fill out an online application and schedule an appointment with a licensed doctor at Higher Limits. A room at the lounge has been set up with a computer and webcam for video calling with a doctor from the Ontario Telemedicine Network.

A registered nurse will also visit the lounge weekly to provide information.

Higher Limits Co-owner Jon Liedtke says a lot of doctors still aren’t comfortable prescribing pot.

“We’re talking about a type of medication which has been stigmatized, really ostracized for decades by the war on drugs,” he says. “But that’s also combined with the fact that there hasn’t been a lot of Canada-made research for that, and that has been due to the fact that there’s been a war on drugs.”

Liedtke calls it a natural extension of what the lounge does.

“We’re really becoming sort of the front-line resource workers in medical marijuana, and that is because there isn’t education surrounding this produt being provided by Health Canada or by OHIP.”

Liedtke says he’s heard of natureopaths offering to connect patients with doctors, but believes his lounge may be one of the first in Canada to offer the service.