 What makes for excellence in heart care? It starts with one of the most amazing teams of heart surgeons and cardiologists that I've seen assembled under one roof and the region's leading technology in a new $40 million facility. This is the nationally recognized Heart and Vascular Institute of Eastern Kentucky at Pikeville Medical Center. January 1st, an executive order went into effect, allowing Kentuckians with qualifying medical conditions to be able to possess and use small amounts of legally purchased medical cannabis. We spoke to Gent Colmes, the owner of Gray Area, about the process of obtaining doctor's notes for medical cannabis. My family doctor, I had an appointment, so I got to see him, but we were talking about it in person, and he was like, I don't know what it's going to ask of, like all the other doctors. Like I said, it's a new thing, so everybody just, they don't want to write something that's wrong or sign on to something that they don't know the whole intel of. But he made an appointment, we'd done a Zoom call, we went over the injuries that I'd had from broken bones and injuries like that, and we spoke about it, and he signed off on it. He asked me to have a, I call it a hard copy, but he goes and fills it out in his own writing and his own wording and signs it, and that's where we're at now. Despite the executive order going into effect, Colmes states that many residents across the state are unable to find a doctor willing to write a note giving access to purchase and use the medical cannabis. After the first, we've had the ancient machine, friends, family, people we know all across the state contact us because they knew that I was getting my card to show the process, and they were like, hey, I contacted my family doctor, he just got back to me, he doesn't want to sign the note, and he's worried about this. Now I'm not saying that every doctor of every high-up company is telling their doctors, hey, we want you to hold off on writing a note. I did exactly what the governor said to do, and I'm no different than any other person in the state of Kentucky. If I'm the only one allowed to have a note, well, and I'll rip mine up because everyone's supposed to have it if it falls under the 21 things. For questions and more information about medical cannabis, contact the gray area at 606-263-4078. Reporting for Mountain Top News, I'm Brianna Robinson.