HARRISBURG -- It's a historic day for Pennsylvania's medical community.
The medical marijuana bill is now headed to the governor's office after being approved by the State House Wednesday.
In a historical decision by the Pennsylvania legislature, a medical marijuana bill cleared its final legal hurdle, being approved by State House lawmakers 149-46 one day after it was passed by the State Senate.
Governor Wolf promises to sign it, making Pennsylvania the 24th state to allow medical marijuana.
For the doctors and nurses at Delta Medix, The Center for Comprehensive Cancer Care in Scranton, this is big news for their cancer patients.
“If this will add and improve their quality of life, that's going to be the important part,” said Cherrie Bentler, a nurse practitioner who has worked with cancer patients for 20 years. “Will it increase their appetite? Will they feel better?”
Dr. Lisa Costaris with Commonwealth Health says it will take about a month to get medical marijuana treatment up and running.
“The department of health is going to need to come up the system to monitor and regulate how its prescribed, who is able to prescribe it, and who's able to receive it,” said Costaris.
Costaris says doctors will need to be certified to prescribe it and a patient needs to have certain conditions to get it.
“A lot of neurological conditions, such as seizure disorder, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, as well as cancer, AIDS, glaucoma,” said Costaris.
Dr. Andrew Hollander is a radiation oncologist at Delta Medix and says this is a new chapter for health care in the Commonwealth.
“I think it's great news and I think it's very exciting,” said Dr. Hollander. “The stigma attached to marijuana is kind of fading and people are noticing that there are benefits to it.”
Dr. Costaris says medical marijuana can be prescribed in different forms; pill, liquid, or even a vapor that would used in a nebulizer, similar to asthma treatments.