The list of health conditions that qualify you for a medical marijuana card in Kentucky has been expanded.

Yesterday, Governor Beshear signed an executive order adding medical conditions that have symptoms already on the qualifying list, such as chronic pain or nausea.

Our Mckenzi Spang brings us more on what this means for Kentuckians looking for alternative pain management in the state.

With licensed dispensaries opening across the state.

Governor Beshear says his office has been getting calls from people confused over the conditions and symptoms that qualify someone for the medical marijuana program under Kentucky law.

If someone's illness causes chronic pain or nausea but is not on the list, do they still qualify?

Some of the conditions include chronic nausea, muscle spasms, and chronic pain, which are of themselves not a condition, but an underlying symptom of other serious medical conditions like ALS, like Crohn's disease, like sickle cell and some terminal illnesses.

These conditions might not be listed in the statue itself, but the underlying symptoms of them are right there in the wording.

Governor Beshear says his executive order to add 15 conditions to the existing law is a clarifying measure that aligns with the intent of the original language from the General Assembly.

Sickle cell anemia is one of the conditions added to the statute.

This disorder causes red blood cells to be crescent shaped instead of round, and creates painful blockages in the blood vessels.

The president of the Sickle Cell Association of Kentuckiana says.

Governor Beshear says action will change the lives of Kentuckians living with sickle cell.

The black blood flow caused a sudden, excruciating pain in the chest, arms, legs, anywhere where blood flows.

It can last for days, hours, weeks, sometimes even months.

Right now in Kentucky and around the country, opiates are often prescribed to treat this serious chronic disease called sickle cell.

But when the legislature passed cannabis in Kentucky with the express purpose of reducing reliance on opioids, they left out sickle cell.

My daughter, Jessica McDowell, like so many others in the state of Kentucky, suffer from sickle cell.

I want to thank Governor Beshear for taking this action against her and more sickle cell patients, more medical options for their treatment and to treat their pain.

And it is why it is best for them.

A recent study shows that medical marijuana can help reduce opioid dependency.

Medical cannabis has been found to decrease dependency on dangerous opioids.

In fact, just days ago, researchers at the University of Kentucky published a first of its kind study that found a 15% reduction in opioid overdoses in areas near where medical cannabis dispensaries have opened.

That means where we open these dispensaries, we have fewer people dying across our state.

So far, more than 23,000 Kentuckians have been approved for medical cannabis cards.

Governor Beshear expects that number to grow because of the additional qualifying conditions added to the law for Kentucky edition.

I'm Mackenzie Spink.