Patients OK'd for med marijuana to get cards early

CONCORD, N.H. - New Hampshire patients who qualify for medical marijuana will be getting a belated but welcome Christmas gift from the state: their identification cards needed to legally purchase and possess cannabis.

State officials said they could start sending them next week.

New Hampshire's four medical marijuana dispensaries, however, won't begin operating until next year.

State officials had earlier said they would not issue the cards until the dispensaries opened, but last week an Alstead woman with cancer sued the state and won the right to purchase medical cannabis in Maine where it is legal.

More than 100 Granite Staters have applied for the cards, officials say.

New Hampshire's Legislature approved medical marijuana in 2013, and it's taken the state way too long to get the program up and running, advocates told The Lebanon Voice earlier this year.