The five companies awarded licenses to grow and sell medical marijuana in New York have joined forces to lobby lawmakers for changes to the state’s Compassionate Care Act.

“We’re going around giving an update to the program [and] sharing some of our impressions and talking about ways that we think the program can be improved,” said Ari Hoffnung, chief executive officer of Vireo Health, one of the five companies that have formed the Medical Cannabis Industry Association.

The four others are PharmaCann, Etain, Columbia Care and Bloomfield Industries.

One of the changes to the law the group will lobby for is to allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to certify seriously ill patients to be eligible for medical marijuana. As it’s written, the law only allows physicians to certify patients.

Both state Sen. Diane Savino and Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, the architects of the Compassionate Care Act, are already sponsoring legislation that would expand who can certify patients for the program. [Read more at Politico New York]