Governor Baker Cautious About Federal Medical Marijuana Requests
BOSTON (CBS) -- The federal government is asking the state of Massachusetts to turn over information on the 40,000 patients who were prescribed medical marijuana.
The request coming from the White House's National Marijuana initiative has Governor Charlie Baker concerned.
Some of the data requested is generic, like the gender and age of the patient. However, Baker is concerned about the requests for information on specific patient conditions.
"I guess it would depend a lot on exactly what they ask for, but the bottom line here is we're not going to do anything that puts anybody's personal information in jeopardy," Baker said.
Baker says no information will be turned over to the federal government that will compromise patients.
"We just got the request. We won't do anything that is going to violate anybody's privacy. I can promise you that," Baker said.
Massachusetts isn't the only state that has been contacted by the federal government.
So far the state has complied and given general information like the age of the patient and date of the prescription, but not information on medical conditions. The state says that data could actually be used to identify the patient.
