The Florida ban preventing medical marijuana patients from smoking cannabis was snuffed out.
On May 25, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Karen Gievers ruled that the state’s ban on smokable cannabis violates the state constitution.
In her 22-page ruling, Judge Gievers wrote, “Qualifying patients have the right to use the form of medical marijuana for treatment of their debilitating medical conditions as recommended by their certified physicians, including the use of smokable marijuana in private places.”
She added that the state law banning medical marijuana from being smoked is “invalid and unenforceable,” and said that it was in conflict with the constitutional amendment voters approved in 2016 that lets qualified patients legally use cannabis.
According to a statement by the Florida’s Department of Health, it has already appealed the ruling which imposes an automatic stay. David Galetta, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement to the Associated Press that this ruling “goes against what the legislature outlined when they wrote and approved the law to implement the constitutional amendment that was approved.”
Medical marijuana advocates across the state praised the ruling as a victory for Floridian patients.
Ben Pollara, head of the nonprofit medical marijuana advocacy group Florida for Care, called the ruling a big victory for patients and voters.
In a tweet posted just after the ruling, the Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida called it “an important ruling to allow physicians and their patients to decide the best way to administer medicine to alleviate their medical condition symptoms in the privacy of their own homes.”
In 2016, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow use of medical marijuana as a treatment for patients with debilitating medical conditions, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and multiple sclerosis.
The only mention of smoking in the legislation is that the state legislature and local governments could restrict it in public places. But in June 2017, the legislature passed enacting laws which banned the sale of smoking products, citing a health risk. The law stated that patients could use cannabis through vaping and also in food, oils, sprays and tinctures.
But the legal battle will continue. The next step is Florida 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee. This is the second medical marijuana case that court will be hearing after Judge Gievers ruled in April that a Tampa man, Joe Redner, is entitled under state law to possess, grow and use medical marijuana for juicing purposes. Redner was prescribed juicing treatments from his physician in order to prevent his stage 4 lung cancer, now in remission, from recurring.
In related cannabis news, businesses looking to enter Florida’s pot industry recently warned state health officials at a hearing about the many flaws a proposed rule increasing the number of medical marijuana operators.
The proposed rule was released last month and set in motion the application process for four highly sought-after medical marijuana licenses. The state has already issued licenses to 13 operators but has yet to begin accepting applications for the four new licenses. The law requires one of the new licenses to be given to an African-American farmer who was involved in federal litigation about discriminatory lending practices.
The law also requires state health officials to give preference for up to two licenses to applicants who “own one or more facilities that are, or were, used for the canning, concentrating, or otherwise processing of citrus fruit or citrus molasses and will use or convert the facility or facilities for the processing of marijuana.”
The citrus preference cited is now one of several marijuana-related court challenges pending. During the public testimony on May 24, most of the complaints were about this citrus-related language in the proposed rule. Attorney Seann Frazier said the proposed regulation substituted the word “property” for “facilities,” which adds vagueness and could possibly broaden the language in the statute which is something the agency is not allowed to do.
In addition, the proposed rule gives the two highest-scoring applicants eligible for the citrus preference an extra 35 points, in addition to a total of 1,150 possible points available to all applicants. Some of the applicants expressed a desire to give more weight to the citrus preference.
Other attendees at the hearing voiced their displeasure about the page limits imposed in the proposed rule which could prevent applicants from providing information, such as how many dispensaries they plan to open.
After the hearing, the public has a week to submit comments on the proposed rule and 10 days to file administrative challenges. If there are no challenges, the Office of Medical Marijuana Use could begin accepting applications by mid-July.
