Medical Marijuana Emerges from the Haze in Florida

The Florida legislature approved medical marijuana in 2014, though the program’s rules and regulations were rewritten and then challenged, which has delayed permit processing. The proposed statewide medical-marijuana program would allow five companies to grow low-THC marijuana, and then sell the extracted oil as medicine for qualifying patients.

Grow operations would be located in five regions: Southeast, Southwest, Central, Northwest and Northeast Florida. The latest court case involved a Central Florida nursery who challenged the recently-developed rules, claiming they were unfair to potential permit applicants because they favored large, politically-connected nurseries.

The rules do have significant requirements for potential grow operations which could limit the pool of applicants in some regions. Applicants must have been in business at least 30 years, with capacity for at least 400,000 plants.

Florida's Department of Health issued a statement about how it intends to move forward quickly, now that the latest legal challenge is resolved: "We remain committed to ensuring safe and efficient access to this product for children with refractory epilepsy and patients with advanced cancer. We are moving swiftly to facilitate access to the product before the end of the year."

The department can start accepting applications for licenses within 20 days. The new rules could face further challenges, but at this time there no pending cases, and implementation is proceeding.