Doctors greenlight patients for medical weed, but it’s often “budtenders” and “marijuana consultants” who guide them through the lotions, gummies and smokable strains at dispensaries, creating a whole new wave of gaps in health records and patient-physician communications.

In many states, dispensary staff, often called budtenders, don’t have medical degrees. States vary in how much training they mandate — not that there’s much peer-reviewed science or prescribing guidelines anyway, largely because of long-standing federal barriers to research.