You described a worst-case scenario. I’d rather smoke Marlboro Greens, and I promised myself 20 years ago I’d never spend another penny with them.

LOL @ Marlboro Greens :-)

They'd be insane to not go with that name.

the marlboro man has traded in his horse and cowboy hat for some natty dreads and a gravity bong. Joe Camel now sports a wook blanket and a heady crystal wrap. can't wait to see what the overly happy and diverse Newport pleasure party goers have adopted

lol

You must not have seen the same Newport ads I did

"You've come a long way, dude."

Marboro Green with 200 hundred additional chemical additives for your enjoyment.

Aka the 'backdoor removal of social security'

I bet that in the US, no health insurer will ever pay for an insured person's marijuana.

I'll happily take the other side of that bet.

I agree it's unlikely. THC may have some medical uses, but smoking it certainly does not.

Perhaps gummies/edibles would be covered under some circumstances -- but to be a prescription or even an OTC "medication" it has to go through FDA approval to demonstrate efficacy and document the side effects, and it will have to be manufactured to pharmaceutical standards of potency and purity, which will make it more expensive.

I think it will most likely be like alcohol: sold for recreational use, age-restricted, and not medical.

I bet that CBD will be covered very quickly, because it really does work very well for so many things, so it shouldn't take long to have enough studies clearly in support of it.

Are there strains of marijuana high in CBD but almost absent of THC?

I'm not sure exactly how this works, but you can get CBD as pills with no THC in them.

(Although anecdotally the best results are obtained from taking mostly CBD with a tiny bit of THC; it appears that the latter does something that makes the former's effect more potent. So you see stuff like e.g. 20:1 CBD:THC pills around - can't get high on that, but very effective at pain management. However pure CBD pills are still more common.)

Yes but the trick is mostly just harvesting early.

Yes

Magnesium supplements work very well for many things, too, but are there American insurance plans that pay for it?

Honestly, yes you can but from what I’ve seen it’s the most useless form because it’s the cheapest: magnesium oxide. Good for laxative effects, bad for uptake. I prefer glycinate personally.

Huh. TIL.

I could see them carrying CBD in pill / gelcap form. (It pretty much snuffs out my migraines.)

I don't think they'll carry intoxicating forms of marijuana, though. (I've never seen a CVS with alcohol, but that could be because of how my state handles liquor licenses.)

CVS in Illinois definitely sells liquor. They seemed to switch to it around the same time they publicly announced they wouldn't sell tobacco anymore.

Walgreens sells cigarettes, cigars, basic alcohol (beer, wine, hard seltzers etc), occasionally liquor, nicotine patches & packets, and snuff. They sell OTC Narcan, and now OTC birth control. They moved into the last two items pretty much immediately upon availability.

They'll definitely look at their options for the marijuana business as they can safely do so legally.