Will Minnesota's restrictive medical marijuana program loosen up?

With Minnesota's medical marijuana program beginning this summer, the state is looking for changes that need to be made now, as it will take up to a year to implement. State officials are debating on adding more qualifying conditions that include larger varieties of difficult pains. Patients with chronic pains are experiencing overwhelmingly positive results with marijuana, and some consider it to be life changing. The decision to help even more people find relief lies with the Department of Health Commissioner, Ed Ehlinger who's goal is to have a decision by the end of 2015.

After more than a decade of compounding back problems and countless surgeries and drugs that proved fruitless, Jeff Ross spends much of his time in bed coping with crippling pain. Support groups for his painful form of spinal arthritis have praised medical marijuana’s effects.

“This is a possibility of having my life back, of going back to work, of being able to be a father and being able to be a husband instead of living this half-life that I have now,” said Ross, a 55-year-old Maple Lake resident and father of four. “If there is a chance that I can have a normal life again, what is their right to be in my way?”