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Rite Aid Now Offering Alternative Medicines, Considering Cannabis

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The public has been searching for alternative ways to keep themselves well for some time, and now bigger stores and pharmacists are taking notice and working to keep with the times. Rite Aid is just one of the recent pharmacies that will now be accessible in helping customers to select alternative medicines and treatments around their conditions, including cannabidiol (CBD) products.

Rite Aid CEO Heyward Donigan spoke at the virtual event The Future of Everything Festival and says that pharmacists have been trained not only in traditional medicine, but also the new, alternative offerings.

“All of our pharmacists were recertified as innovative pharmacy specialists, and so they are now newly certified on alternative and holistic remedies,” Donigan said. “They are now experts and have been trained around our product offerings around what works and what doesn’t.”

Donigan says that pharmacists are trained to help customers find treatments that either compliment their traditional treatments or could adequately replace the regimens entirely. In addition, each pharmacy has a tip sheet that highlights products in the store that are useful for specific needs, with some of the most popular options including melatonin, lavender and aromatherapy.

Following the boom behind CBD as an aid for a variety of ailments, Donigan and other execs have introduced CBD into the mix, while keeping legal considerations in mind. CBD is currently legalized across the nation for retail, though cannabis is only legal for medicinal purposes in 36 states and must be purchased with a prescription or medical card from a dispensary. 

However, Donigan indicated that executives are paying close attention to changes in cannabis legislation on federal and state levels for opportunities to open the program up in the future. 

“We are regulated, so we have to be very careful about making sure we follow all the regulations,” Donigan said. “I think that everyone is looking at the marijuana business, and there’s complexity to that, but certainly keeping an eye on that.”