According to the Mercury News, medical marijuana retail workers in California are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Since 1996 we’ve been deemed medical, so how can you redefine us as something different all these years later?” Kiloh, owner of the Higher Path Collective in Sherman Oaks told Mercury News. “Frontline health care workers are supposed to be in Tier 1. We are frontline workers.”
The California Department of Public health has updated its Phase 1A to include medicinal cannabis workers.
“Cannabis industry employees are included in Phase 1A for medicinal cannabis and Phase 1B Food and Agriculture for growing, production, storage, transport, and distribution. Medical cannabis workers should be accommodated as necessary in Phase 1B, Tier 1, by nature of their designations in eligible essential workforce classifications,” the website reads.
Of course, not everyone thinks the designation is fair.
“Cannabis delivery drivers before school bus drivers and teachers?” Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner tweeted in response to a Los Angeles Times column. “Makes no sense to me.”
Edison High School teacher Mike Walters told the Mercury News that teachers are too essential to be passed over by cannabis industry personnel when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
“Teachers should be prioritized ahead of the cannabis dispensaries,” said Walters, who teaches U.S. history and government at the Huntington Beach school. “We’re kind of on the frontlines with these kids on a daily basis. I hope the quicker we get this vaccine to teachers then the quicker we can get all kids back in the classroom, instead of just a few of them.”
While the designation puts medical marijuana workers ahead of teachers, in some counties including Alameda, teachers are already starting to get vaccinated as part of Tier 1B.
Not all counties are following the state’s new updates. Both San Diego and Orange Counties are refusing to vaccinate medicinal marijuana workers.