Florida Medical Marijuana Rules Restrict Patient Access

Medical marijuana in Florida was signed into law earlier this summer with the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014. The law authorized the cultivation, production and dispensing of a low thc based extraction. The Florida Department of Health has held two public rule making workshops with the public.

The general consensus was the rules were very restrictive and burdensome for businesses in the state. Insane requirements almost makes one think it's designed to fail. A Notice of Proposed Rule was published this week. The Florida medical marijuana rules for Low THC cannabis. can be read in their entirety at the previous link. As you will see the rules are insane. Let's take a look at some of them.

There are only going to be five dispensing locations. This is very anti-patient, anti-access. For some patients the commute will be four hours or more. For people with severe debilitating diseases this is next to impossible. Forcing an elderly, or terminally ill patient to drive four hours for medicine that makes their quality of life improve as well as treat their condition is inhumane. This is one of the many rules that will make this hard for businesses.

For the lucky five dispensaries they have 10 days after being selected to pay their non-refundable $150,000 application fee and post a $5 million dollar bond. This is a considerable amount of money for a nursery that already has to deal with the cost of running a successful nursery. There is not much incentive for a business to add another type of plant to cultivate when it costs that kind of money. Most profitable business owners will just stick with what they know. On top of the that, the cost of renewing the license is $300,000. As if the cost of being able to cultivate marijuana in Florida isn't bad enough the time requirements are unrealistic.

Dispensaries are expected to be dispensing their low thc marijuana in Florida within 150 days. Not only is this time frame unrealistic, but the rules don't address how the Florida medical marijuana business is supposed to get their first crop. Most of the other states that legalized medical cannabis have looked the other way. This is what it appears the Florida politicians will be doing. This is a lack of leadership and says a lot about the character of our politicians. Not that there has ever been one who had any. There are also burdensome requirements from seed to sale.

Every single batch of low thc Florida Medical Marijuana must be tested by a department official. There are very detailed records that must be kept of every single aspect of cultivation. All records must be kept for a minimum of 5 years and be available for inspection. Bad cannabis or marijuana that doesn't meet the thc/cbd levels must be destroyed. This is where the rules get a little far reaching. County sheriffs are the ones tasked with destroying the marijuana. They also must be notified anytime any plant matter is destroyed.

Treating medical marijuana as a street drug does nothing but reinforce the notion that marijuana is bad. County Sheriffs should not be bothered with destroying a plant that any qualified nursery can just turn into compost. This is something that most counties can't afford at this time.

The Department of Health is obviously being instructed by politicians who have a political motive for the rules being so anti-patient, anti-business. The more and more we learn, the more it becomes clear that this entire bill and implementation has been designed to fail. Now with that in mind, it may still work out for business owners. We believe that ingenuity will win against stubborn bureaucracy every time. Florida medical marijuana will fortunately get a second chance in November. If Amendment 2 on the November 4th ballot passes it's not going to matter that the final rules have tightened the noose on Florida dispensaries.