The state of Arizona is considering requests to add more ailments to the list of qualifying conditions for medical cannabis, including PTSD and migraine headaches.

The Department of Health Services, which is required under the 2010 law to consider requests to expand coverage, holds a public hearing Friday on the first batch of requests.

Besides PTSD and migraines, the requests for covered conditions include depression and general anxiety disorder. The law already permits medical marijuana use for such medical reasons as cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, chronic pain, muscle spasms and hepatitis C.

Even as the state considers expanding the program, it is still implementing a key part of the law.

Friday is the deadline to submit applications to operate medical marijuana dispensaries. Up to 126 dispensaries will be permitted statewide, but only one per designated area. Those typically are either rural towns or parts of metropolitan areas.

But consideration of adding further ailments may be delayed as officials address what they say are abuses of the program.

State medical regulatory boards already have disciplined doctors for failing to adequately consider patients’ needs and conditions before recommending medical marijuana.

The state Medical Board in February reprimanded one physician who wrote certifications for 483 patients without making required checks of a controlled-substance database.

The Naturopathic Physicians Medical Board suspended another doctor’s license for failing to adequately examine patients and document their conditions before certifying them for medical marijuana.

There are so many ailment that medicinal marijuana can help, and most states only recognize a fraction of them. There is a long road ahead of medical marijuana patients and advocates before cannabis is recognized for how amazing it is and for how much it can help.

Far too many people must medicate in silence and in fear. Is that what passes for health care in this country?

- Joe Klare