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Court says medical marijuana law clashes with constitutional amendment
The state law requires entities to “conform to a more restricted definition” than is provided in the amendment.



Florida’s law requiring pot operators to grow, process and distribute cannabis and related products created an “oligopoly” and runs afoul of a constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana in the Sunshine State, an appellate court ruled Tuesday.

The 1st District Court of Appeal’s decision sent shock waves through the state’s highly restricted but rapidly growing medical marijuana industry, in which licenses are routinely selling for upward of $50 million.

The three-judge panel’s ruling upheld in part a decision issued last year by Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson, who sided with Tampa-based Florigrown in a lawsuit alleging a state law, passed during a 2017 Special Legislative Session, did not properly carry out the amendment.

Lawmakers passed and Gov. Rick Scott signed the measure (SB 8-A) into law to implement the state’s medicinal cannabis constitutional amendment, passed by 71 percent of voters the year before. Senate Appropriations Chair Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican, was the main sponsor.

Dodson issued a temporary injunction requiring state health officials to begin registering Florigrown and other medical-marijuana firms to do business, but the judge’s order was put on hold while the state appealed.


Dodson’s ruling also struck down a portion of the state law that set a cap on the number of medical marijuana operators in the state, which Tuesday’s appellate decision supported.

The amendment, approved by more than 71 percent of Florida voters in 2016, defines “medical marijuana treatment centers” as “an entity that acquires, cultivates, possesses, processes … transfers, transports, sells, distributes, dispenses, or administers marijuana, products containing marijuana, related supplies, or educational materials” to qualifying patients or their caregivers, and is registered by the Department of Health.

Meanwhile, under the state law aimed at carrying out the amendment, “a licensed medical marijuana treatment center shall cultivate, process, transport and dispense marijuana for medical use.”

The statute “creates a vertically integrated business model which amends the constitutional definition of MMTC (medical marijuana treatment centers) by requiring an entity to undertake several of the activities described in the amendment before the department can license it,” judges Scott Makar, James Wolf and T. Kent Wetherell wrote in the majority opinion. Makar and Wetherell also wrote separate opinions.

The state law requires entities to “conform to a more restricted definition” than is provided in the amendment, the majority said.


“We thus find the statutory language directly conflicts with the constitutional amendment, and appellee (Florigrown) has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success” in procuring a judgment declaring the statute unconstitutional, the majority wrote.

“Our ruling that the vertically integrated system conflicts with the constitutional amendment thus renders the statutory cap on the number of facilities in (a section of state law) unreasonable,” the judges added.

Tuesday’s ruling is “a good thing for the state of Florida,” Joe Redner, a Tampa strip-club operator who is one of Florigrown’s owners, told The News Service of Florida in a telephone interview.

“If the Legislature can create oligarchies in any field, it’s crony capitalism. They’re picking winners and losers. And that’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not constitutional,” Redner said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, who forced the Legislature to do away with a ban on smoking medical marijuana, expressed concern about Florida’s vertical integration system shortly after he took office in January.

Writing separately on Facebook, Adam Elend – Florigrown’s CEO – said “we shall see how hard this Governor wants to fight for a system that he has said he doesn’t believe in. I think this is a great opportunity to work together to create a functional system, now that we know the current one won’t pass constitutional muster. But an appeal is of course likely.”

The governor’s legal team is reviewing Tuesday’s ruling, DeSantis spokeswoman Helen Ferrésaid in an email.

The appellate court found “it is in the public interest” to require health officials to register medical marijuana operators “without applying the unconstitutional statutory provisions.” But that finding “does not support requiring the department to immediately begin registering” medical marijuana operators at this stage of the proceedings, the majority decided.

“While it is in the public interest for the department to promulgate rules that do not thwart the purpose of the amendment,” it is also clear that the public interest would not be served by requiring the Department of Health to register medical marijuana treatment centers “without applying other regulations to uphold the safety of the public,” the majority wrote.

Doing away with the caps on the number of medical marijuana operators in Florida would almost certainly cause the value of existing licenses to plummet, a possibility Wetherell addressed in a separate opinion.

The majority’s decision “will effectively mandate an immediate change in the entire structure of the medical marijuana industry in Florida,” wrote Wetherell, concurring in part and dissenting in part with the majority opinion.

But “although such a change may ultimately be warranted,” Dodson and Florigrown failed to show “how the public interest would be served by mandating this change through a preliminary injunction,” according to Wetherell.

The statutory scheme put in place by the Legislature and implemented by the health department “appears to be serving the public interest” because, despite a limited number of operators, “it is undisputed that medical marijuana is being produced and sold to qualifying patients,” Wetherell wrote, adding that “the confusion and uncertainty that the change would inject into the fledgling industry is not in the public interest.”

The court should leave the “carefully-crafted statutory scheme enacted by the Legislature” in place until the lawsuit is finalized, the judge advised.

That would allow existing medical marijuana operators “to join the fray because it is their golden geese that may be killed — or at least devalued — if the oligopolistic statutory scheme established by the Legislature to implement the medical marijuana amendment is ultimately invalidated,” concluded Wetherell.

Tuesday’s opinion came from a conservative-leaning bench that has frequently sided with the state. The ruling won’t result in an overnight upheaval to the state’s pot industry, but it will require state health officials to come up with new regulations, which could include caps on licensure.

For example, the state could set limits on the number of growers or on the number of dispensaries or decide to do away with caps altogether.

“While today’s decision raises certain questions as to how Florida’s medical marijuana industry will be regulated in the future, it will not result in any immediate changes and is not the final word from the courts on the issue,” Jim McKee, an attorney who represents a number of medical marijuana operators as well as entities seeking licenses in Florida, told the News Service.

Elend, in a separate phone interview, also called the ruling a “game-changer.”

“It drops a bomb on the current licensing scheme. It’s just changing the whole regime,” Elend said. “People are not getting medicine. The dispensaries are out of stock all the time. The products are limited, and the prices are high.

“That’s what happens in an oligopoly and that’s what we have.”
 
Another article on this subject. I love it.... the state of FL is getting its ass handed to them in court on almost every suit thus appropriately sticking it to the former Gov and his legislature who felt empowered to ignore the electorate's will, and the subsequent language of the state constitution, and instead impose their own view on the state's MMJ program.


Florida Court rules medical marijuana Licensing Law Unconstitutional


A Florida appellate court ruled on Tuesday that a law enacted to license cannabis providers in the state does not comply with the amendment that legalized medical marijuana and is therefore unconstitutional. The ruling by the 1st Court of Appeals in Tallahassee held that the law requiring cannabis businesses to be vertically integrated and handle all aspects of cannabis production from seed to sale created an oligopoly and should be struck down.

The court also upheld the lower court’s ruling that provisions of the medical marijuana regulations enacted by the state legislature that capped the number of licenses for providers also did not conform with the amendment passed by voters in 2016. The decision by a panel of three judges is expected to be further appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, according to media reports.

Suit Challenges Vertical Integration Requirements
A suit challenging the requirement that cannabis providers in the state be vertically integrated was filed by Florigrown, a company based in Tampa.
Leon Circuit Judge Charles Dodson, who heard the case, ruled in favor of the plaintiff, finding that the regulations passed by lawmakers in a 2017 legislative special session did not properly carry out the amendment. Dodson then issued a temporary injunction requiring the state health department to begin issuing licenses to Florigrown and other applicants for medical marijuana licenses, but that order was put on hold pending appeal.

Upholding the original court’s decision, appeals court judges Scott Makar, James Wolf, and T. Kent Wetherell wrote that the regulations create “a vertically integrated business model which amends the constitutional definition of MMTC (medical marijuana treatment centers) by requiring an entity to undertake several of the activities described in the amendment before the department can license it.”

Plaintiffs Pleased with Ruling
Joe Redner, one of the owners of Florigrown, said that Tuesday’s appeals court ruling is “a good thing for the state of Florida.”

“If the Legislature can create oligarchies in any field, it’s crony capitalism,” Redner said. “They’re picking winners and losers. And that’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not constitutional.”

Adam Elend, the CEO of Florigrown, said that the appeals court ruling has the potential to shake up Florida’s medical marijuana program and the industry.

“It drops a bomb on the current licensing scheme. It’s just changing the whole regime,” Elend said. “People are not getting medicine. The dispensaries are out of stock all the time. The products are limited, and the prices are high. That’s what happens in an oligopoly and that’s what we have.”

The appeals court also found that regulating medical marijuana providers
“without applying the unconstitutional statutory provisions” is in the public interest, but the ruling “does not support requiring the department to immediately begin registering” new providers.

In a separate concurring and dissenting opinion, Weatherell noted that the majority opinion could cause the value of medical marijuana licenses, which can be up to $50 million or more, to drop significantly.

The majority opinion “will effectively mandate an immediate change in the entire structure of the medical marijuana industry in Florida,” Wetherell wrote.
 

In Florida, a haze builds around pot law enforcement as technology catches up to policy

A law that took effect July 1 legalized hemp and CBD products containing traces of THC, the compound in marijuana that gets you high. But field tests and crime labs haven't caught up.

Zachary Miller was napping in the car as he rode west through the Florida Panhandle, back to Texas and his cannabis business.

He was coming from a wellness expo in Miami where he had shown off waxes, oils and cigars made from hemp, a relative of marijuana. He awoke when his associate, driving the car, told him they were being pulled over.

Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies started to search the car but Miller didn’t think he had anything to worry about. His products, he said, contained mostly CBD — the compound found in hemp and marijuana that doesn't get you high and was declared legal under a federal hemp bill passed late last year.

But when deputies tested some of it, the results showed the presence of THC — the stuff that gets you high and is illegal in Florida unless recommended by a doctor for medical use.

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Miller, 36, now faces three felony drug charges. His case highlights a quandary for the state of Florida: Legalization is outpacing law enforcement technology.

A hemp bill that took effect July 1 removes the plant from the list of substances that are deemed illegal because of their potential for abuse. But many hemp-derived products still have trace amounts of THC so the bill language allows for them to contain .3 percent or less of it.

The trouble is that law enforcement agencies and prosecutors can test for the presence of THC but not for how much of it there is. The equipment they use in the field and in the lab produces the same results whether a test sample has high levels of THC or a minuscule amount.

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Adding greater precision to the process will take time and money.

Meantime, Florida may see a “defacto legalization” of marijuana, “just because of the resources that are going to be involved in proving the substances,” said Philip Archer, the top prosecutor for Brevard and Seminole counties and president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association.

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Pursuing marijuana cases, in other words, may become more trouble than it’s worth.

Some agencies, faced with inconclusive test results on a CBD product, may just let people go if they find it on them. Others may arrest people who have committed no crime.

"It's going to be ugly," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. "This has not been thought through."

• • •

The science behind CBD's potential health benefits is scarce, but advocates like Miller swear by it for pain relief and healing.

Since Miller started his cannabis business a couple years ago, he said he's seen his product users — patients, as he calls them — experience fewer seizures and less pain, and in one case, stop chemotherapy treatment for cancer.

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He and his brother, a Navy veteran, own Texas Remedy Hemp, traveling to spread the word about CBD and partnering with wellness professionals like massage therapists and chiropractors.

"When I started providing, I saw it as a medicine," Miller told the Tampa Bay Times, "not a way to make a quick dollar."

But the industry also has serious financial potential. Analysts with New Frontier Data, a cannabis industry information firm, predict $1.3 billion in CBD sales by 2022.

Some states launched lucrative growing operations under a 2014 federal bill that allowed pilot hemp farms to open under government oversight. At the end of last year, federal lawmakers passed a new version of the Farm Bill that legalized hemp at the federal level.


State lawmakers got to work during the spring legislative session on a bill that would do the same in Florida. But some entrepreneurs took a calculated risk and dove into the murky water between state and federal law.

That explains why CBD stores have popped up all over the state, and why coffee shops and smoothie bars are now offering CBD add-ins.

Law enforcement agencies contacted in the Tampa Bay area said they are still trying to interpret the law or waiting for direction from the state. They acknowledged that their field tests are limited.

At least one company, Nevada-based defense contractor Syndicate Alliance, is in the process of preparing a field test that can tell the difference between marijuana and hemp, said co-founder and chief operating officer John Waldheim.

The company has talked to more than a dozen police departments about the technology and anticipates distributing about 30,000 kits before the end of August, Waldheim said.

"It's like an overnight sensation," he said.

The chemistry used in the kits is promising, said Reta Newman, director of the Pinellas County Forensic Laboratory, but Newman won’t endorse them without more proof of their reliability.

What’s more, she said, field tests can only provide probable cause — the low bar of evidence police need to make an arrest. Making a case in court requires test results from a lab like hers.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Is CBD legal in Florida? And other common hemp questions

Newman, president of an informal association of Florida crime lab directors, said she is working on a new method of testing cannabis that wouldn't require much extra equipment or more people. The method would determine a test sample’s range of THC content, more or less than 1 percent, rather than a precise figure. But that’s enough to work in nearly all potential criminal cases involving cannabis, Newman said.

She hopes to roll it out in the next three months.

"The cases that come in in that time period are going to be in a holding pattern," Newman said, "but at least we have something."

Pinellas has its own lab, but most agencies in Florida — including those in Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando — generally send their samples to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for testing. FDLE can't test for THC amount, either, and conveyed that information to lawmakers as the bill was moving through the Legislature, said spokeswoman Angela Starke.

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"This type of testing will require significant additional department resources," Starke said. "The department is currently evaluating the situation."

• • •

Sheriff Gualtieri, legislative chairman of the Florida Sheriffs Association, said he, too, expressed concerns about testing to lawmakers.

But bill sponsor Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, told the Times in an email that during the session, the testing issue "certainly wasn’t a point of emphasis from any interested party."

"If necessary, the issue can be addressed either by rule or during the next legislative session," Bradley said. "This is an emerging industry. Any kinks will be worked out as industry regulations evolve."

Starke also pointed out that law enforcement agencies can send their samples to private labs, but at a cost. About 15 agencies have started accounts with EVIO Labs, a company with locations in Gainesville and Fort Lauderdale, said co-founder and president Chris Martinez. The lab charges about $50 to $70 per sample.

Ultimately, state attorneys will decide how much evidence is needed to pursue a marijuana case and whether it's worth the time and money, said Archer, with the prosecuting attorney's association.

In Texas, several prosecutors have said they would stop pursuing some or all low-level marijuana charges. No prosecutors in Florida appear to have taken this step.

In Hillsborough, State Attorney Andrew Warren said in a statement to the Times that his office will continue to send low-level marijuana offenses to arrest diversion programs and concentrate its efforts instead on drug trafficking and violent crimes.

In Pinellas and Pasco, State Attorney Bernie McCabe said he will decide whether to prosecute on a case-by-basis.

"We’ll just have to see," McCabe said. "I don’t have an easy answer, and obviously the statute doesn’t provide me an answer."

• • •

Miller was pulled over in the Panhandle about a week before Florida's hemp law took effect. CBD was still technically illegal statewide.

Still, the report of his arrest focused on THC that Miller said was present in only trace amounts. The report refers to "prepackaged cigars which contained suspected marijuana" and "small prepackaged containers which contained suspected THC extract."

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Deputies also found a vape pen with "suspected THC oil" in the center console that Miller said didn't belong to him — and methamphetamine in a bag that belonged to a third person in the car. Miller faces no charges in connection with the meth discovery.

The deputy on the scene detected the odor of a burnt cigar that smelled like marijuana, said Okaloosa Sheriff’s Office Capt. Dave Allen.

Allen told the Times that some of the products found in the search showed no signs of THC, adding to the deputy's suspicion that the others did contain the illegal compound.

Miller acknowledged that he didn’t know CBD was still illegal in Florida when he was pulled over. But any implication that his products contained more than the THC threshold is wrong, he said. He plans to fight the charges.

“If somebody wants to call me a criminal for giving medicine to people, so be it,” he said.

Capt. Allen said he had “never heard nor seen of any CBD products that smell like marijuana.”

But Sheriff Gualtieri said it's generally accepted that CBD plant material does have an odor similar to THC plant material.

That’s part of the problem law enforcement faces.

"It's not different at all," Gualtieri said. "I wish it was pink. That would make it easier."
 

Florida has ‘all-time high’ support for recreational pot, but will it be on the ballot?


With medical marijuana dispensaries becoming commonplace in Florida, will recreational pot soon be on the shelves, too?

The people behind the effort to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot say yes.

That optimism is reflected in the 65 percent of Florida voters polled recently by Quinnipiac University who support the idea, a number the polling company noted is at “an all-time high.” National trends are running the same way.

But the push for recreational marijuana, also known as adult-use pot, is still far from a done deal. A similar measure to get medical pot on the ballot in 2016 — when it passed easily — was polling much higher the year before the vote, at about 84 percent approval.

The ballot box is different from a public poll. Medical marijuana failed the first time around in 2014, missing the required 60 percent approval by just two percentage points, even though a Quinnipiac poll from 2013 showed 82 percent approval by Floridians. That’s far stronger than current support for recreational pot.


One other factor: John Morgan. The brash personal injury attorney from Orlando who largely bankrolled the state’s medical marijuana ballot amendment isn’t putting his cash behind the latest push — yet.

He says he thinks the odds of recreational use winning approval in Florida this election cycle are “in the short run, not good. Because I cannot see this Legislature enacting that. I don’t see anybody doing a constitutional amendment in 2020. But I think ultimately, for all the states, it will be legal.”

Getting medical pot passed was a different story, he said. The praise he heard for his efforts persuaded him it would pass.

“I was kind of a one-man band out there and I thought I would have more help and I didn’t get any help, but so many people were coming up to me and thanking me, but I just kept going. And now that it’s all said and done, I think it’s some of the best money I ever spent. ... I don’t go anywhere in Florida that someone doesn’t walk up to me and thank me.”

Even without Morgan’s buy-in, the effort to get the issue on the 2020 ballot is at least 64,000 signatures deep, thanks to Regulate Florida, which is leading the charge. Still, at roughly this same point in 2015, the medical pot group United For Care had 100,000 signatures.

To make it on the ballot, a group needs to gather a little more than 76,000 valid signatures and submit them to the Florida Supreme Court to review the ballot language. If the court approves the language, which calls for adults over 21 to have the right to grow and use cannabis, the next step is to gather a minimum of 766,200 signatures to put the question on the ballot for voters across the state.

That’s expensive. According to Michael Minardi, an attorney from Tampa who is the campaign manager for Regulate Florida, the effort will cost about $5 million. And that’s after a new law approved by the Legislature this year increased the cost of gathering signatures for citizen ballot drives.

Minardi said the effort is “doing well” financially so far, but money will be key moving forward. “We don’t have any major backer at this time,” he said. “Funding comes from multiple sources, including Minardi Law.”

He said the group has gotten donations from Sunshine Cannabis, a Trulieve brand. Trulieve is the medical marijuana company with the most dispensaries in Florida



Other pot companies have also donated, Minardi said, along with some applicants who want to get licenses to operate in the state.

“We are confident and believe that if we pass the Supreme Court review, more and more entities will want to get on board,” he added.

The push for a vote on recreational use in Florida by 2020 follows a rapid shift in U.S. voters’ views on marijuana. In 1995, a quarter of Americans approved of legalizing marijuana in some form, according to a Gallup poll. By 2018, that number had climbed to 66 percent.

Today, 33 states have legal medical pot. Eleven of those states — with Illinois set to join the pack in January — have also legalized recreational marijuana. It remains illegal at the federal level.

And the shift in Florida has followed the same trend lines.

A Quinnipiac poll from Florida in 2013 found only 48 percent of voters supported recreational marijuana. Six years later, approval has jumped 17 points. Another Florida poll, from the University of North Florida in March, found a rate of approval of 62 percent, nearly matching the 65 percent approval in that most recent Quinnipiac poll.

But public opinion doesn’t always translate into government action. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, when recently faced with that “all-time high” polling support for adult use pot, said in June he still wouldn’t support recreational marijuana.

“Not while I’m governor,” DeSantis told the Capitol News Service. “I mean look, when that is introduced with teenagers and young people, I think it has a really detrimental effect to their well being and their maturity.”

State representatives have also attempted to legalize recreational marijuana by filing bills, but none have been successful. Democratic Reps. Michael Grieco and Carlos Guillermo-Smith, from Miami Beach and Orlando, respectively, saw their bill shot down last year. They plan to file another version of the bill in 2019, Guillermo-Smith confirmed.

Political opposition and poll numbers are why some of the state’s leading marijuana advocates prefer to keep the conversation focused on medical.

“I don’t see this Legislature actually doing anything when it comes to legalization in 2020. The best we hope is that they in fact realize there’s problems with the medical marijuana program, and will actually make some changes to better the program,” said Nikki Fried, Florida’s agriculture commissioner and a former medical pot lobbyist who’s made marijuana a cornerstone of her platform.


Young marijuana plants named, “Blue Dream,” grow under artificial light in one of the many grow rooms at th Curaleaf’s Homestead Cultivation Facility.

And the medical marijuana business is good. In the last year, Florida’s market has nearly doubled.

As of late June, Florida had roughly 230,000 patients — 100,000 of whom have signed up in the last year — and 139 dispensaries, 100 of which have opened since last year.

Brady Cobb, a medical marijuana lobbyist and cannabis investor in Washington, D.C., and Florida, has a unique perspective on the issue. His dad, Bill Cobb, was a pot smuggler in the 1970s in North Florida. He believes the medical pot industry will be big and — although full legalization is still a ways off — the momentum is on the side of legal pot across America.

“Once California went full rec, the genie’s out of the bottle,” he said. “Once you got rec in Michigan ... Ohio’s now wide open. Florida’s wide open. Gas pedal down. It’s not 20,000 patients anymore. It’s mainstream.”

It’s the same for Fried, the only Democratic statewide officeholder in Florida. She thinks recreational marijuana is on the horizon, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, even if the federal government continues to classify pot as a schedule 1 drug with “high potential for abuse.”

“I’m hoping that with education and more public support that we’ll get there,” she said. “Otherwise, it may need to be a constitutional amendment, and not have to wait for the federal government.”

Morgan, to date the most powerful pro-pot voice in the state, echoes that view. It’s not if, but when.

“For Florida, you know, it’s like dominoes. They click slowly and they start clicking faster and then all of a sudden they run, and you have a tipping point,” he said. “And that’s where we are with marijuana in America.”
 
FL Legislature....a gift that just keeps on giving.....one idiotic situation after another. Where in the world did these "politicians" come up with the requirement that the industry be entirely vertically integrated from grower to processor, to distributor, to dispensary.

This locks out all but the largest money players.

Wanna know why....I bet if you follow the money you will see the answer to that.


Medical marijuana: Florida House seeks to intervene in ‘monumental' case


TALLAHASSEE — Florida House leaders should be able to participate in a lawsuit that could revolutionize the state’s medical marijuana market, a lawyer for the Republican-led chamber told a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal Tuesday.

But Tampa-based Florigrown argued that legislators instead should concentrate on fixing the law, aimed at carrying out a constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana.

Tuesday’s arguments came a week after a different panel of the same appellate court upheld in part a Tallahassee judge’s decision that the statute, approved by legislators during a special session in 2017, ran afoul of the constitutional amendment.

“When a law is found to be unconstitutional, the Legislature goes and fixes it. They don’t freelance and argue on their own, the constitutionality of what they already wrote. They could have written it in a constitutional way in the first place,” Florigrown CEO Adam Elend told reporters following Tuesday’s hearing.

The House sought to intervene in the legal challenge after Leon Circuit Judge Charles Dodson sided with Florigrown and ruled that the statute requiring pot operators to grow, process and distribute cannabis and related products — a system known as “vertical integration'' — was unconstitutional. Dodson’s ruling also struck down a portion of the state law that set a cap on the number of medical marijuana operators in the state. But the Tallahassee judge refused to allow the House to join in the lawsuit.

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During arguments in the House’s appeal, however, Judge Bradley Thomas openly questioned Dodson’s decision.

“The (constitutional) amendment was a monumental change of the law, in allowing the distribution of a drug that is illegal under federal law, illegal under Florida law except to the extent that it’s authorized by the amendment, and a circuit judge has declared this regulatory scheme invalid. How can the House not be allowed to intervene on the merits of that determination?” Thomas asked Katherine Giddings, a lawyer representing Florigrown.

Giddings said the House waited too long to join the lawsuit, and that the issue was settled by the appellate court on July 9, when a majority of a three-judge panel found that “the statutory language directly conflicts with the constitutional amendment, and appellee (Florigrown) has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success” in procuring a judgment declaring the statute unconstitutional.

The appeals court in part upheld Dodson’s temporary injunction requiring state health officials to begin registering Florigrown and other medical-marijuana firms to do business.

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“This is a situation where the legislation is so blatantly unconstitutional,” Giddings said.

But Thomas disagreed, saying the constitutionality of the law will be determined by the appeals court, not the circuit judge.

“It’s not blatantly unconstitutional until we decide whether it is or not,” Thomas scolded.

The appeals court decision, which requires health officials to come up with new regulations, did not result in an overnight upheaval to the state’s pot industry. But it sent shockwaves through Florida’s highly restricted but rapidly growing medical marijuana industry, in which licenses are routinely selling for upwards of $50 million.

And Thomas may have injected even more uncertainty into the state’s cannabis arena on Tuesday, saying the appellate ruling “is not final” because “it’s subject to rehearing.”

In addition, Dodson has yet to rule on the merits of the lawsuit filed by Florigrown, which is partly owned by Tampa strip-club operator Joe Redner.

But Giddings argued that the resolution of the case could be simple.

“All that the Legislature has to do is meet in special session and come up with laws that are constitutional,” she said, again drawing the wrath of Thomas, who was highly skeptical that such a solution would be easy.
 
This goes to the same subject as TX and NC with articles under Misc News. That is, with hemp legalized, what is proper probable cause for MJ possession?


Florida’s Largest Police Force Stops Detaining People Over Pot Smell
Hemp is legal in Florida, and that’s making it harder for police to stop and search people for suspected marijuana possession.
The tell-tale smell of cannabis smoke has long been law enforcement’s best excuse for questioning and detaining people over suspected cannabis possession. And police often use “marijuana odor” as a pretense for stop-and-frisks and searches, whether they actually detected a smell or not. But in Florida, the mere odor of cannabis will no longer be enough cause to detain and search people suspected of consuming or possessing weed. Not because Florida police departments are relaxing their enforcement of marijuana laws. But instead, because Florida has legalized hemp, and officers don’t have the training or the technology to distinguish cannabis from its non-psychoactive cousin.

Florida’s New Legal Hemp Law Is Changing How Police Enforce Marijuana Laws

After the U.S. federal government legalized hemp late last year, states have been moving to revise their own marijuana laws to carve out space for legal hemp. Under the blanket prohibition of cannabis, many state laws didn’t make a distinction between hemp—now defined as cannabis with less than 0.3 percent THC—and the forms of cannabis people consume for recreational and health reasons.

But in light of the lifting of the federal ban on hemp and hemp products, which range from clothing, food and textiles to cannabidiol (CBD) products, states are bringing their own rules in line with the new federal law.

And in Florida, the legalization of hemp is causing an interesting knockdown effect: it’s changing the way police enforce laws against marijuana. So when Florida’s legal hemp law went into effect July 1, 2019, removing hemp and hemp products from the state’s list of controlled substances and therefore making it legal to possess, Florida police departments began instructing officers that the smell of cannabis alone could no longer be just cause for detaining a person or conducting a search.

Despite the major difference between hemp and weed—their respective quantities of THC—the two breeds of cannabis have much in common. In the first place, hemp and weed have virtually the same odor. And to the untrained or inexperienced, the plants can look and feel very similar. Indeed, as far as their legal definitions go, the only difference between marijuana and hemp is which side of the 0.3 percent THC they fall on. Go over, and the law considers that to be an illegal substance. Stay under, and you’ve got legal hemp.

Miami-Dade Police Now Need “Odor Plus” to Detain People for Weed

And it’s exactly because of their similarities, and the apparent difficulty officers have telling the difference, that Florida police departments are changing their enforcement of marijuana laws. Before hemp was legalized, the alleged “smell of marijuana” was enough to stop, search and detain someone. Now, however, smell alone isn’t enough.

Instead, Florida police officers now have to produce “odor plus” in order to stop someone for suspected cannabis possession. And according to a memo sent to the Miami New Times by the Florida Police Legal Bureau, “plus” means additional factors that would lead an officer to suspect the presence of illicit marijuana and not legal hemp. “Accordingly, officers can no longer search a vehicle based solely on the odor of cannabis,” the memo reads.

The memo defines “odor plus” as including factors like signs of impairment, any admissions or statements a suspect might make regarding marijuana or any information or intelligence that suggests illegal activity. If an officer can articulate any of those factors, then they can detain and search a suspect.

Implementation of the policy shift began in sheriff’s departments in Central Florida, according to the Orlando Sentinel. And on July 19, the change was adopted by Florida’s largest police force, the Miami-Dade Police Department. Other police departments across Florida municipalities are following suit.

Will Legal Hemp Make It Harder For Police to Bust People for Weed?

Overall, the new “odor plus” requirements should make it more difficult for officers to stop, detain and even arrest people for suspected marijuana possession. And Florida’s legalization of hemp could introduce further changes to the way police investigate alleged cannabis possession. For example, the Florida Department of Police only tests cannabis samples for the presence of THC, not whether THC quantities go over the 0.3 percent limit, according to the Miami New Times. But now that plants with THC below that amount are legal, police will likely have to adopt new testing procedures





 
FL government's actions on MMJ are gift that keeps on giving....sort of like a chronic illness...sigh.

Florida wants new hearing in major medical marijuana licensing case


Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is asking an appellate court to revisit a decision that Florida officials argue injected “confusion and uncertainty” into the state’s medical marijuana industry.

DeSantis and health officials on Wednesday asked the 1st District Court of Appeal for a hearing by the full court, known as an “en banc” hearing, after a July 9 ruling that Florida’s “vertical integration” system requiring licensed operators to grow, process and distribute cannabis and by-products runs afoul of a constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the court “is of exceptional importance because it implicates whether the entire regulatory framework currently in place for the licensing of medical marijuana treatment centers should be overturned,” lawyers for the state argued in Wednesday’s 28-page motion.

RELATED: Florida House leaders want to intervene in lawsuit that shakes up medical marijuana market »

The panel upheld in part a decision issued last year by Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson, who sided with Tampa-based Florigrown in a lawsuit alleging a state law, passed during a 2017 special legislative session, did not properly carry out the 2016 constitutional amendment.

Dodson issued a temporary injunction requiring state health officials to begin registering Florigrown and other medical-marijuana firms to do business, but the judge’s order was put on hold while the state appealed. Licensed operators are known in Florida as medical marijuana treatment centers.

The panel’s “affirmance of a substantively flawed temporary injunction” by Dodson “has introduced further confusion and uncertainty into Florida’s emerging medical marijuana industry,” the state’s lawyers wrote in Wednesday’s motion.

The decision also “presents a dramatic and unprecedented shift in this court’s jurisprudence governing issuance of temporary injunctions,” which could have a significant impact on future cases, the lawyers added.

Wednesday’s widely expected motion also asked the court to refer the case to the Florida Supreme Court — a process known as “certification of a question of great public importance” — if the appeals court refuses to grant a rehearing.

The July 9 ruling by judges Scott Makar, James Wolf and T. Kent Wetherell — who is now a federal judge — gave Florida Department of Health officials “a reasonable amount of time” to begin registering medical marijuana operators.

RELATED: Florida law creates ‘oligopoly’ for pot businesses, court decides »

But, even with the panel’s modifications to Dodson’s temporary injunction, the appeals court decision leaves Florida’s medical marijuana program in “a regulatory twilight zone,” the state’s lawyers argued Wednesday.

“The uncertainty surrounding the current licensing and enforcement of MMTCs (medical marijuana treatment centers) during this ‘reasonable period of time,’ coupled with the near certain litigation surrounding the (health) department’s implementation of an entirely new medical marijuana regulatory and licensing structure, will only serve to draw out the court-ordered ‘wholesale restructuring of the medical marijuana industry in Florida,’ “ the lawyers wrote.

DeSantis, who forced the Legislature to do away with a ban on smoking medical marijuana, expressed concern early this year about Florida’s vertical integration system, which requires operators to handle all aspects of the cannabis trade, including growing, processing and dispensing. If the state did not have a vertical integration system, companies could focus on individual aspects of the business.

The state’s arguments Tuesday echoed concerns expressed in a separate opinion authored by Wetherell on July 9.

The majority’s decision “will effectively mandate an immediate change in the entire structure of the medical marijuana industry in Florida,” wrote Wetherell, concurring in part and dissenting in part with the majority opinion.

RELATED: Ruling rejects limits on medical marijuana businesses »

But “although such a change may ultimately be warranted,” Dodson and Florigrown failed to show “how the public interest would be served by mandating this change through a preliminary injunction,” according to Wetherell.

A separate three-judge panel heard arguments last week in the Florida House’s attempt to enter the lawsuit, which could revolutionize the state’s medical marijuana market, where licenses are routinely selling for upwards of $50 million.

During the July 16 hearing, Judge Brad Thomas openly questioned Dodson’s decision.

“The (constitutional) amendment was a monumental change of the law, in allowing the distribution of a drug that is illegal under federal law, illegal under Florida law except to the extent that it’s authorized by the amendment, and a circuit judge has declared this regulatory scheme invalid. How can the House not be allowed to intervene on the merits of that determination?” Thomas asked Katherine Giddings, a lawyer representing Florigrown.

Giddings said the House waited too long to intervene in the case, and that the issue had already been settled by the three-judge panel.

“This is a situation where the legislation is so blatantly unconstitutional,” Giddings said.

But Thomas disagreed, saying the constitutionality of the law will be determined by the appeals court, not the circuit judge.

“It’s not blatantly unconstitutional until we decide whether it is or not,” Thomas said.








 
Florida Activists Clear First Hurdle To Put Marijuana Legalization On State’s 2020 Ballot



An effort to legalize marijuana for adult use in Florida cleared an initial hurdle on Monday.
Activists collected enough verified signatures on petitions in support of a proposed cannabis legalization constitutional amendment to trigger a state Supreme Court review of the initiative’s language. This marks one of the first official steps on the path to getting legalization on Florida’s 2020 ballot.

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That said, if the court approves the language, Regulate Florida will still face a significant challenge to put the question of legalization before voters. In order to qualify for the ballot, the group will have to gather a total of 766,200 valid signatures—roughly 10 times what they’ve collected so far.
“This is a MILESTONE in Florida and WE ARE DEDICATED TO GETTING THIS ON THE BALLOT IN 2020!!!” Regulate Florida board members wrote in an email to supporters. “We have a long way to go to get it on the ballot but we will GET IT DONE TOGETHER!!!”

As Regulate Florida notes on its website, signature gathering is a costly endeavor. The price of printing, collecting and validating each petition is estimated to be about $2. And reform advocates so far haven’t received financial support for this effort from personal injury attorney John Morgan, who bankrolled the state’s successful 2016 medical cannabis legalization initiative as well as a prior 2014 attempt.
Morgan is instead focusing this year on a proposal to raise the minimum wage and told The Miami Herald that he doesn’t think the state has the appetite for recreational legalization—although 65 percent of Florida voters said they support ending cannabis prohibition in a June poll.
But activists are emboldened, arguing that voters are ready to do what lawmakers have repeatedly failed at. Legalization legislation introduced earlier this year stalled and died without ever receiving a hearing, for example.
Regulate Florida is also pitching its legalization ballot measure as a boost for medical cannabis patients, emphasizing that it would allow for home cultivation so patients can grow their own medicine. The group is seeking volunteers to distribute and collect signed petitions and for donations to fund the paid petitioning process.






 
FL is just a news gift that keeps on giving! haha

Please keep in mind that, as far as I know, Morgan has a very large financial stake in legal MJ.

John Morgan: Let’s vote to make recreational marijuana legal in Florida next year

Orlando lawyer John Morgan on Tuesday backed a campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida through a constitutional amendment in 2020, declaring that “I am too old to care” about opposition to the proposal.

“I believe that #marijuana should be legal!!” Morgan wrote on his Twitter account. "I think we have time and I think there is money to get it done. I already have the minimum wage signatures. Let’s do this maybe, forget Tallahassee! #ForThePeople - #PotDaddy”

1565110708106.png


In June, Morgan tweeted a different tune: “I support the full legalization of #marijuana. However, my plate is full w/ a living wage for Florida’s working poor. I can only slay one dragon at a time.”

What changed?

“I was approached by industry leaders who have the deep deep pockets to do it and do it fast,” Morgan said in an email Tuesday.

A strong majority of voters — 65% to 30% — said they wanted to see marijuana legalization in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll in June, a showing the pollsters called “an all-time high in the state” on the marijuana issue.

Two years ago, the same poll found 56% in favor and 41% opposed.

But, Morgan added, “It will still be hard.”

How the campaign will be structured is yet to be determined, Morgan said. A new political committee, Make It Legal Florida, based out of Tampa, registered with the state last week.

The group Sensible Florida has been gathering petitions for an amendment legalizing marijuana for adults over the age of 21 since 2016, having collected more than 79,000 so far.

But Morgan said he wasn’t sure how he would move forward with the campaign, whether through one of those existing groups or a new group of his own.




Hemp-based CBD beverage starts to take hold in Central Florida


Aug 06, 2019 | 5:32 AM



While the details are still being worked out, Morgan did have one prediction for the amendment.

“It will pass in a landslide,” he said.

The key, Morgan said, “is that the industry will use their financial resources to move it. And it has to move fast. And we are lucky we have one Cabinet member who will be all in: Nikki Fried.”

Fried, the only statewide elected Democrat in the state, won a slim victory for agriculture commissioner in 2018 thanks in part to her crossover appeal to Republican and libertarian voters because of her strong support for medical marijuana.

Fried has not commented on the recreational pot amendment. Her office had not returned a request for comment Tuesday.

House seeks to intervene in medical marijuana case »

Morgan jumping into the fray to legalize pot had been long in coming and has featured a lot of twists and turns.

He bankrolled much of the campaign to legalize medical marijuana in the state, which passed with 71% of the vote in 2016, but has gone back and forth since about whether recreational pot was the next step.

After a brief flirtation with running for governor, Morgan had said he was solely focused on his efforts to place an amendment on the 2020 ballot that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

In May 2018, he said he didn’t think he would need to initiate a referendum to legalize recreational pot because “all the dominoes will be falling nationally in four years.”

But in June 2018 he said he would go for it, saying he learned from his 2014 and 2016 medical marijuana campaigns that it was necessary to launch such campaigns during presidential elections and not midterm years with lower turnout.

Until Tuesday, his energy had been tied up in his minimum wage initiative.

Last month he announced he had gathered more than a million signatures for that campaign, far more than the required amount. The state has yet to certify them all, however.


 
Florida Lawmaker Files Bill To Decriminalize Marijuana

A Florida lawmaker introduced a bill on Monday that would decriminalize low-level marijuana possession in the state.


Rep. Shevrin Jones (D) filed the legislation, which would make possession and delivery of 20 grams or less of cannabis a noncriminal violation that does not carry jail time.


“We must restore justice to our broken criminal justice system,” Jones said in a press release. “For far too long, communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by laws governing marijuana, and we must end this injustice once and for all.”

1565111767240.png




“After being charged with possession, many Floridians feel the lasting impact as their student financial aid, employment opportunities, housing eligibility, or immigration status are adversely affected,” Jones said. “When we take away these foundational compounds of security, we’re capping people’s potential in life. That’s why I’m proud to introduce legislation to fix this problem.”


“By tackling this issue, we can make our communities more equitable and safer.”

The bill, which would also cover possession of up to 600 milligrams of THC, was introduced one week after activists cleared their first hurdle toward placing a broader marijuana legalization initiative on the state’s 2020 ballot. They collected enough verified signatures to get the measure reviewed by the state Supreme Court. Still, there’s a long road ahead of organizers, who must secure 766,200 valid signatures to put the proposal before voters next year.


“Florida has one of the most punitive systems when it comes to simple possession,” NORML State Policies Coordinator Carly Wolf told Marijuana Moment. “Anything that can be done to lift their draconian policies is a crucial step in the right direction and we look forward to supporting Rep. Jones in this effort.”


While the prospects of legalization remain murky, jurisdictions throughout Florida are pushing ahead with decriminalization plans. The city commission of Cocoa Beach approved a measure in May to decriminalize possession of 20 grams or less of marijuana, for example, and a local lawmaker is working to accomplish the same feat in Tallahassee.


But as it stands, state law maintains that simple possession is punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail.


Police in the state have said that enforcing cannabis laws has been complicated by the passage of legislation legalizing hemp, however. Without the means to differentiate marijuana from its low-THC cannabis cousin, law enforcement has issued guidance advising officers to be wary of conflating the two crops and to take extra measures to ensure that individuals are not subject to prosecution for legal hemp.


The text of Jones’s new decriminalization bill contains an apparent drafting error. While other subsections state that possession of 20 grams or less would be a noncriminal violation, one line describes the offense as a misdemeanor. Presumably, that section was meant to designate that possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana would become a misdemeanor. Marijuana Moment reached out to Jones’s office for clarification, but a representative was not immediately available.





 
Keefe clarifies: Small-time pot, medical marijuana businesses won't be prosecution targets

U.S. Attorney Lawrence Keefe's office will focus its crime-fighting efforts on the intersection of marijuana and violent crime and pot dealers who engage in large-scale sales, not small-time marijuana cases.

Keefe's office clarified its approach to prosecuting state marijuana crimes after offering last week to take up any cases local prosecutors wouldn’t because of challenges differentiating between illegal pot and legal medical hemp.

“Unlike recreational marijuana users who largely engage in small-time transactions, these violent criminals pose a very real and ongoing threat to the law-abiding citizens of our communities,” Keefe said in a Tuesday press release.

“For this reason, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida will continue to exercise its federal prosecutorial discretion and responsibility to pursue those cases that involve violent felons who commit gun violence while trafficking in marijuana.”

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida Lawrence Keefe speaks at the Federal Courthouse after suspended commissioner Scott Maddox and former Downtown Improvement Authority chief Paige Carter-Smith plead guilty to three charges of public corruption Tuesday, Aug. 6. 2019.
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U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida Lawrence Keefe speaks at the Federal Courthouse after suspended commissioner Scott Maddox and former Downtown Improvement Authority chief Paige Carter-Smith plead guilty to three charges of public corruption Tuesday, Aug. 6. 2019. (Photo: Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat)

Marijuana in the headlines:

Keefe also said he has no intent to target medical marijuana in his district, which spans from Escambia to Alachua County, and includes five state judicial circuits — the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th and 14th. Despite a booming medical marijuana industry in the state, on the street and at the federal level the drug is still illegal.


“(We) will not prosecute marijuana-related businesses that operate here in compliance with Florida state law,” he wrote. “The resources of this office should be allocated to higher priorities ... precious resources should not be used to prosecute federally here in the Northern District of Florida what the Florida state Legislature has determined to be a legal in regard to marijuana."

He said gun violence, drug and human trafficking, domestic terrorism and addressing elections safety, national security and public corruption take priority.


Keefe’s offer to take on state marijuana followed decisions by State Attorney Jack Campbell and other top prosecutors around the state, who have said until they can afford to invest in testing that can tell the difference between marijuana and hemp, they would put a pause on prosecuting some cases.

Hemp, or cannabis with a psychoactive THC content of .3% or less, was legalized by the Florida Legislature and the 2018 federal Farm Bill, but issues have arisen among law enforcement agencies unable to tell the difference between them. They both come from cannabis plants and look and smell the same.





 
Why marijuana could be legal in Florida as soon as 2020

For years, the possibility of legalizing recreational adult-use marijuana in Florida was little more than an afterthought — but in recently, momentum’s picked up. In 2016, Florida voters approved an initiative that legalized medical cannabis, only for state lawmakers to subsequently ban smokeable forms until earlier this year. Now, legal recreational marijuana in Florida may be a reality as soon as 2020.
One of the signs of cannabis-related change next year is the new political committee Make It Legal Florida, which registered with the state earlier this month. It’s chaired by Nick Hansen, a longtime advisor to Republican State Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg, who recently took on the role of southeastern director of government affairs at MedMen, the California company that’s attempting to take the retail pot world by storm. The company currently has a store in West Palm Beach and a delivery service in Orlando, and will soon have a chain of locations across the state (at least 11 additional stores are “coming soon,” according to MedMen’s website.) At this point, these dispensaries are for medical patients only.
Then there’s the advocacy group Regulate Florida, which is also backing a proposed 2020 amendment to legalize marijuana, has gathered more than 83,000 signatures so far, campaign manager and Tampa-based lawyer Michael Minardi tells Rolling Stone. Under Florida law, that’s enough to trigger a judicial review by the Florida Supreme Court and a financial impact review. From there, if successful, 766,200 signatures from at least 14 of the state’s 27 counties are required to get the referendum on the 2020 election ballot. “We’re very confident that we’ll pass the Supreme Court review,” Minardi says, adding that he thinks the economic review will also come out “very favorable in regards to the benefits it will provide to the economy” in Florida.
Then there’s Orlando attorney John Morgan, a brash, heavy-hitting financial power player in the Sunshine State and the co-founder of the class action and personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan. Notably in the weed world, though, Morgan was the funds-plugging maestro who spent millions of dollars of his own fortune to bankroll a 2014 push for medical marijuana in Florida, which barely failed to meet the required 60 percent supermajority threshold among voters. Morgan’s efforts were in part foiled by billionaire conservative Sheldon Adelson, who donated more than $5 million to the initiative’s opposition campaign. Righteously pissed off after spending roughly $4 million of his money in 2014, Morgan plugged about $7 million into the 2016 initiative to legalize medical marijuana, which 71 percent of Florida voters approved.
This year, however, he’d been largely silent, focusing instead on a 2020 initiative that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 by 20206. As late as June, he wrote on Twitter, to his 65,000 followers, “I support the full legalization of #marijuana. However, my plate is full w/ a living wage for Florida’s working poor. I can only slay one dragon at a time.”
Then, last week, he changed his tune. “I believe that #marijuana should be legal. I think we have time and I think there is money to get it done. I already have the minimum wage signatures.” He signed the tweet with his nickname: “#PotDaddy.”



“What changed my mind is those in the industry came to me and said, ‘Look, if we can come up with the money, will you help us lead the charge?’” Morgan tells Rolling Stone. He declined to say who, exactly, the industry insiders are, as did several others who work within the cannabis industry. “When the petitions are out there being signed, everybody will see who is behind it and what the vehicle is,” Morgan says. The members of the industry insiders’ group, as well as where their money is coming from, will be a matter of public record once they kick off their own petition gathering process.
Morgan believes what makes him a key figure in the fight for legal recreational weed in Florida is not just his history of going after anti-pot lawmakers — he called on former Gov. Rick Scott to drop the state’s appeal of a 2018 decision by a Tallahassee Circuit Court judge, which allowed for the sale of smokable medical marijuana — but his experience navigating the state’s ballot amendment process, which he has now done twice. His potential war chest, he claims, consists of over a million signatures and addresses of citizens who have signed his previous petitions. “Also I can use my platform and my bully pulpit to ride people,” he says, before claiming that he’s had hundreds of influential people reach out to him since he went public with his support and has since “forwarded [them] on to the powers that be.” But who are the so-called powers?
Asked about their influence in the coming months, a spokesperson with Make It Legal Florida provided a statement from Hansen praising their new ally. “John Morgan is a visionary. He has been an incredible advocate for Florida patients and used his platform and his resources to ensure they had access to medical marijuana treatments. Certainly, any initiative related to marijuana usage would be honored to have his support.”
Minardi also claimed his group, Regulate Florida, isn’t yet involved with Morgan, and has so far been unable to setup a meeting with the prominent attorney. Minardi did note, however, that he has recently spoken to Hansen. “I had a great conversation with Mr. Hansen last week. Basically he couldn’t release the language yet until they get it approved,” Minardi says, referring to how MedMen was among a group of entities that were looking into backing their own ballot initiative last week. As soon as it’s approved, Minardi continues, he says Regulate Florida has agreed to look over the language in the potential initiative to see if it’s something they’re comfortable throwing their support behind. “We just want to open this market and get it back to where it’s supposed to be — in the peoples’ hands and in the ground, not in monopolies’ hands,” Minardi says.
At the state level, there are possible allies for the cause to legalize marijuana. Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried, whose pro-medical cannabis and hemp platform helped boost her bid as the only Democrat to win statewide office in Florida last year, tells Rolling Stone her main focus is on improving the state’s medical marijuana program. She is, however, in favor of cannabis’ “life-changing potential” for both patients and Florida’s economy, such as new tax revenue for education, infrastructure, affordable housing, and jobs, and the potential to improve the criminal justice system. “So I think people should absolutely have their say on bringing recreational marijuana to Florida,” Fried says.
Still, the pushback against legal recreational marijuana among other lawmakers is inevitable. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in March signed into law a bill that lifted the state’s ban on smokeable medical marijuana, has previously declined to support recreational adult-use marijuana under his tenure. The Florida Sheriff’s Association also opposed to the idea of even a medical cannabis program in Florida in 2016. (Neither Gov. DeSantis nor the Sheriff’s Association returned Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.)
In other words, the opposition to legal recreational marijuana in Florida will be strong. Not just in state, either. But nationally, too, as Sheldon Adelson’s funding of the opposition campaign to Morgan’s 2014 medical marijuana initiative demonstrates.
“What’s holding it up right now is this: There are a handful of filthy rich, old, old, old white [conservatives] that are the sugar daddies for many Republican politicians, who are admittedly — and I mean crazily — opposed to anything marijuana,” Morgan says. “So you take a guy like Sheldon Adelson — [the marijuana] topic sends him flying out of his wheelchair with his toupee on fire,” Morgan says. “So until they croak, for a better word, that’ll be the problem. The young Republicans like [Congressman] Matt Gaetz — he’s a champion for us. It’s the old, old, old Republicans.”
So speaks the man from his self-declared bully pulpit. In Florida, though, Morgan understands the financial mechanics it takes to push an initiative. He’s admittedly anxious about 2020 being too tight of a turnaround for the ballot initiative, especially after DeSantis signed into law House Bill 5, which complicates putting proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. He says it’ll take “big money” to push the effort over the line by the January 1st, 2020 deadline, after which the Florida Secretary of State gets 30 days to certify the required number of signatures.
But the momentum, it seems, is here.
“I’m not the money-man and I’m not the final decision maker,” says Morgan. “I’m the guy who’s walked through the forest before, who’s marked the trees with yellow ribbons and I knows the way. And I’ve got a flashlight — and a bullhorn.”
Correction: A previous version of this article quoted a statement from Hansen, and said it was provided to Rolling Stone through MedMen. It came through the organization Make It Legal Florida.
 
Why marijuana could be legal in Florida as soon as 2020

For years, the possibility of legalizing recreational adult-use marijuana in Florida was little more than an afterthought — but in recently, momentum’s picked up. In 2016, Florida voters approved an initiative that legalized medical cannabis, only for state lawmakers to subsequently ban smokeable forms until earlier this year. Now, legal recreational marijuana in Florida may be a reality as soon as 2020.
One of the signs of cannabis-related change next year is the new political committee Make It Legal Florida, which registered with the state earlier this month. It’s chaired by Nick Hansen, a longtime advisor to Republican State Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg, who recently took on the role of southeastern director of government affairs at MedMen, the California company that’s attempting to take the retail pot world by storm. The company currently has a store in West Palm Beach and a delivery service in Orlando, and will soon have a chain of locations across the state (at least 11 additional stores are “coming soon,” according to MedMen’s website.) At this point, these dispensaries are for medical patients only.
Then there’s the advocacy group Regulate Florida, which is also backing a proposed 2020 amendment to legalize marijuana, has gathered more than 83,000 signatures so far, campaign manager and Tampa-based lawyer Michael Minardi tells Rolling Stone. Under Florida law, that’s enough to trigger a judicial review by the Florida Supreme Court and a financial impact review. From there, if successful, 766,200 signatures from at least 14 of the state’s 27 counties are required to get the referendum on the 2020 election ballot. “We’re very confident that we’ll pass the Supreme Court review,” Minardi says, adding that he thinks the economic review will also come out “very favorable in regards to the benefits it will provide to the economy” in Florida.
Then there’s Orlando attorney John Morgan, a brash, heavy-hitting financial power player in the Sunshine State and the co-founder of the class action and personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan. Notably in the weed world, though, Morgan was the funds-plugging maestro who spent millions of dollars of his own fortune to bankroll a 2014 push for medical marijuana in Florida, which barely failed to meet the required 60 percent supermajority threshold among voters. Morgan’s efforts were in part foiled by billionaire conservative Sheldon Adelson, who donated more than $5 million to the initiative’s opposition campaign. Righteously pissed off after spending roughly $4 million of his money in 2014, Morgan plugged about $7 million into the 2016 initiative to legalize medical marijuana, which 71 percent of Florida voters approved.
This year, however, he’d been largely silent, focusing instead on a 2020 initiative that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 by 20206. As late as June, he wrote on Twitter, to his 65,000 followers, “I support the full legalization of #marijuana. However, my plate is full w/ a living wage for Florida’s working poor. I can only slay one dragon at a time.”
Then, last week, he changed his tune. “I believe that #marijuana should be legal. I think we have time and I think there is money to get it done. I already have the minimum wage signatures.” He signed the tweet with his nickname: “#PotDaddy.”



“What changed my mind is those in the industry came to me and said, ‘Look, if we can come up with the money, will you help us lead the charge?’” Morgan tells Rolling Stone. He declined to say who, exactly, the industry insiders are, as did several others who work within the cannabis industry. “When the petitions are out there being signed, everybody will see who is behind it and what the vehicle is,” Morgan says. The members of the industry insiders’ group, as well as where their money is coming from, will be a matter of public record once they kick off their own petition gathering process.
Morgan believes what makes him a key figure in the fight for legal recreational weed in Florida is not just his history of going after anti-pot lawmakers — he called on former Gov. Rick Scott to drop the state’s appeal of a 2018 decision by a Tallahassee Circuit Court judge, which allowed for the sale of smokable medical marijuana — but his experience navigating the state’s ballot amendment process, which he has now done twice. His potential war chest, he claims, consists of over a million signatures and addresses of citizens who have signed his previous petitions. “Also I can use my platform and my bully pulpit to ride people,” he says, before claiming that he’s had hundreds of influential people reach out to him since he went public with his support and has since “forwarded [them] on to the powers that be.” But who are the so-called powers?
Asked about their influence in the coming months, a spokesperson with Make It Legal Florida provided a statement from Hansen praising their new ally. “John Morgan is a visionary. He has been an incredible advocate for Florida patients and used his platform and his resources to ensure they had access to medical marijuana treatments. Certainly, any initiative related to marijuana usage would be honored to have his support.”
Minardi also claimed his group, Regulate Florida, isn’t yet involved with Morgan, and has so far been unable to setup a meeting with the prominent attorney. Minardi did note, however, that he has recently spoken to Hansen. “I had a great conversation with Mr. Hansen last week. Basically he couldn’t release the language yet until they get it approved,” Minardi says, referring to how MedMen was among a group of entities that were looking into backing their own ballot initiative last week. As soon as it’s approved, Minardi continues, he says Regulate Florida has agreed to look over the language in the potential initiative to see if it’s something they’re comfortable throwing their support behind. “We just want to open this market and get it back to where it’s supposed to be — in the peoples’ hands and in the ground, not in monopolies’ hands,” Minardi says.
At the state level, there are possible allies for the cause to legalize marijuana. Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried, whose pro-medical cannabis and hemp platform helped boost her bid as the only Democrat to win statewide office in Florida last year, tells Rolling Stone her main focus is on improving the state’s medical marijuana program. She is, however, in favor of cannabis’ “life-changing potential” for both patients and Florida’s economy, such as new tax revenue for education, infrastructure, affordable housing, and jobs, and the potential to improve the criminal justice system. “So I think people should absolutely have their say on bringing recreational marijuana to Florida,” Fried says.
Still, the pushback against legal recreational marijuana among other lawmakers is inevitable. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in March signed into law a bill that lifted the state’s ban on smokeable medical marijuana, has previously declined to support recreational adult-use marijuana under his tenure. The Florida Sheriff’s Association also opposed to the idea of even a medical cannabis program in Florida in 2016. (Neither Gov. DeSantis nor the Sheriff’s Association returned Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.)
In other words, the opposition to legal recreational marijuana in Florida will be strong. Not just in state, either. But nationally, too, as Sheldon Adelson’s funding of the opposition campaign to Morgan’s 2014 medical marijuana initiative demonstrates.
“What’s holding it up right now is this: There are a handful of filthy rich, old, old, old white [conservatives] that are the sugar daddies for many Republican politicians, who are admittedly — and I mean crazily — opposed to anything marijuana,” Morgan says. “So you take a guy like Sheldon Adelson — [the marijuana] topic sends him flying out of his wheelchair with his toupee on fire,” Morgan says. “So until they croak, for a better word, that’ll be the problem. The young Republicans like [Congressman] Matt Gaetz — he’s a champion for us. It’s the old, old, old Republicans.”
So speaks the man from his self-declared bully pulpit. In Florida, though, Morgan understands the financial mechanics it takes to push an initiative. He’s admittedly anxious about 2020 being too tight of a turnaround for the ballot initiative, especially after DeSantis signed into law House Bill 5, which complicates putting proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. He says it’ll take “big money” to push the effort over the line by the January 1st, 2020 deadline, after which the Florida Secretary of State gets 30 days to certify the required number of signatures.
But the momentum, it seems, is here.
“I’m not the money-man and I’m not the final decision maker,” says Morgan. “I’m the guy who’s walked through the forest before, who’s marked the trees with yellow ribbons and I knows the way. And I’ve got a flashlight — and a bullhorn.”
Correction: A previous version of this article quoted a statement from Hansen, and said it was provided to Rolling Stone through MedMen. It came through the organization Make It Legal Florida.
Yeah yeah we will see. John Morgan is on board. Regulate Florida has been making moves. Who knows
 
FL MMJ program is just a give that keeps on giving...sigh, sort of like psoriasis.


Florida medical cannabis licensing issue heads to state Supreme Court


A court case that could break up Florida’s vertically integrated medical marijuana structure and open up new licensing opportunities in the fast-growing market is headed toward the final step of a long legal process.

A divided appellate court denied the state’s request to rehear the matter, sending the case to the Florida Supreme Court for a potential review, the News Service of Florida reported.

Businesses have been waiting anxiously for a final decision on how the courts will resolve the challenge to Florida’s MMJ structure and licensing caps.

The legal limbo has created “tremendous uncertainty” for licensees and they want a stable marketplace to operate in, Jeffrey Sharkey, executive director of the Florida Medical Marijuana Association, recently told Marijuana Business Daily.

The crux of the legal challenge is that Florida’s licensing restrictions run counter to the intention of the constitutional amendment passed by voters when they legalized MMJ in 2016.

The most recent court ruling ruled that the structure is unconstitutional but would give the Florida health department time to establish new licensing standards.

Florida’s MMJ market currently resembles an oligopoly.

Six vertically integrated companies operate more than 80% of the state’s 155 dispensaries, according to the state’s Aug. 23 update.

For more on this story, click here.
 
This is a wonderful read....I mean, these judges just ripped the FL state government a new anus...and deservedly so, IMO. Love it, hope the judiciary keeps hammering those idiots in Tallahassee and busts up the big corp monopoly that is ill serving FL med patients.

Split Court Refuses To Revisit Major Pot Case

A split appeals court on Tuesday refused to grant the state’s request to revisit a decision that could revolutionize the way medical marijuana operators do business in Florida.

Instead, the 1st District Court of Appeal asked the Florida Supreme Court to decide whether the state’s “vertical integration” system of requiring licensed operators to grow, process and distribute cannabis and derivative products runs afoul of a constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana in Florida.

In an unusual twist in the high-profile lawsuit, five judges on the appeals court recused themselves from deciding whether the case should get a hearing by the full court, known as an “en banc” hearing. The judges did not explain their recusals.

In a 2-1 July ruling, a panel of the appeals court upheld a Leon County circuit judge’s decision that found the state’s vertical integration system conflicted with the constitutional amendment, approved by more than 70 percent of voters in 2016.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration asked the Tallahassee-based appellate court to revisit the panel’s decision, which Florida officials argued injected “confusion and uncertainty” into the state’s medical marijuana industry.

But after the five judges recused themselves, the remaining judges split 4-4, and “less than a majority … voted in favor of rehearing en banc,” Tuesday’s ruling said.

The decision came in a drawn-out lawsuit filed by Tampa-based Florigrown, a medical marijuana company owned in part by prominent strip-club owner Joe Redner. The company challenged provisions of a 2017 law that was aimed at implementing the constitutional amendment.

Under the law, the vertical integration system requires operators --- dubbed “medical marijuana treatment centers” --- to handle all aspects of the cannabis trade. If the state did not have a vertical integration system, companies could focus on individual aspects of the business. Critics of vertical integration contend that it shuts out firms from the industry.

In a concurring opinion Tuesday supporting the decision to deny a rehearing, Judge Scott Makar concentrated, in part, on differences in the definitions of “medical marijuana treatment centers” in the 2017 law and in the constitutional amendment.

The statute says medical marijuana treatment centers “shall cultivate, process, transport, and dispense marijuana for medical use,” while the amendment says a medical marijuana treatment center is an entity that “acquires, cultivates, possesses, processes … transfers, transports, sells, distributes, dispenses, or administers” medical marijuana.

“The power of the Legislature does not include rewriting clear language in the Constitution, transforming a disjunctive ‘or’ into a conjunctive ‘and,’ ” Makar wrote.

“No evidence exists that the people via the elemental language of the medical marijuana amendment clearly intended a market limited to only a few fully vertically-integrated medical marijuana companies,” he wrote.

Because the law “so clearly conflicts with the Constitution, en banc review is unwarranted and would serve only to further delay the inevitable, which is to allow for our Supreme Court to weigh in and definitively pass upon the matter, which the panel has promptly accommodated,” Makar added.

Makar and judges James Wolf and T. Kent Wetherell, who is now a federal judge, made up the three-judge panel in the July 9 decision, which upheld in part a ruling by Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson. Dodson issued a temporary injunction requiring state health officials to begin registering Florigrown and other medical-marijuana firms to do business, but his order was put on hold while the state appealed.

Makar joined Wolf and judges Joseph Lewis and Ross Bilbrey in opposing the request to rehear the case. In his concurring opinion, Makar noted that the decision to ask the Supreme Court to decide the matter leaves the “existing legislatively-established oligopolistic vertically-integrated market structure” intact.

“Even if the Supreme Court denies review, and the panel opinion becomes operative, no floodgates will open that threaten ruination on society --- akin to Reefer Madness --- as might be feared,” Makar wrote. “Properly regulated, medical marijuana serves an important public health goal in accord with the intent of a super-majority of Florida voters.”

But in a sharply worded dissent, Judge Brad Thomas chided his colleagues for refusing to take up the case again and ripped the three-judge panel’s decision. Thomas noted that marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug under federal law, which means it has a high potential for abuse.

The decision not to revisit the appellate ruling “will have a profound impact on public safety,” Thomas wrote, arguing that the July decision “usurps the constitutional authority of the Legislature, which carefully considered and approved those policies, and the governor, who signed the legislation” and whose Department of Health is responsible for implementing the policies.

Thomas warned that the preliminary injunction “will result in the increased potential for the unregulated use of marijuana, a dangerous drug which has been shown in numerous studies to represent a significant harm to both young people and others who may now be permitted unfettered access to this drug.”

Judges M. Kemmerly Thomas, Timothy Osterhaus, and Harvey Jay joined Thomas in seeking to hear the case en banc, but they did not write separate opinions or sign on to Brad Thomas’ dissent.

Chief Judge Stephanie Ray and judges Clay Roberts, Lori Rowe, Susan Kelsey and Thomas Winokur were recused.

Despite the unusual circumstances of the split decision and the number of judges who did not take part, Tuesday’s ruling did little --- if anything --- to change the landscape for medical marijuana operators already in the state or for those seeking entry to what is projected to be one of the nation’s most-lucrative cannabis markets.

“It’s obvious the court was split on how to resolve the issues in the case,” Jim McKee, a lawyer who represents licensed medical-marijuana operators and companies seeking to do business in the state, told The News Service of Florida in a telephone interview. He added that it was “surprising that five judges recused themselves” from Tuesday’s decision.

Like others in the industry, McKee is waiting for the state Supreme Court to “have the final say on the issues.”

The high court ruling could have a far-reaching impact. Operators’ licenses are routinely selling for upwards of $50 million, but the value of those licenses ccould plummet if the court does away with state caps on the number of medical marijuana operators, or if the court decides that vertical integration contradicts the constitutional amendment.
 
I was talking to @mvapes today and he was telling me about the Florida medical program. He qualifies because of his Parkinson's. But he has to go in every 3 months to re-qualify and the doctor fee is ridiculous at around $300. And that doesn't include the fee to the state; which is (if I remember correctly) only for one year. What the hell? How do they expect these patients to be able to afford this?
 
I was talking to @mvapes today and he was telling me about the Florida medical program. He qualifies because of his Parkinson's. But he has to go in every 3 months to re-qualify and the doctor fee is ridiculous at around $300. And that doesn't include the fee to the state; which is (if I remember correctly) only for one year. What the hell? How do they expect these patients to be able to afford this?
@mvapes is getting ripped off. I use docmj for my rec and it's 169$ every 210 days or 30$ a month ... Yeah it's not cheap but 300$ every 3 months is ludicrous.

And then yeah 75$ for the card that's good for a year. A dispensary gives you 75$ off 150$ Everytime you re new so it kinda feels worth it for the card. And the 169$ to stay off the streets is worth every penny ime/o

@mvapes idk where in fl you are but stay safe and grab supplies. Already sold out of gas in my area and in surrounding. Wish I had a butane vape that's for sure ... Powers due to go out tonight and prob stay that way a few days!

:nunchuks:
Bring it Dorian
 
@mvapes is getting ripped off. I use docmj for my rec and it's 169$ every 210 days or 30$ a month ... Yeah it's not cheap but 300$ every 3 months is ludicrous.

And then yeah 75$ for the card that's good for a year. A dispensary gives you 75$ off 150$ Everytime you re new so it kinda feels worth it for the card. And the 169$ to stay off the streets is worth every penny ime/o

@mvapes idk where in fl you are but stay safe and grab supplies. Already sold out of gas in my area and in surrounding. Wish I had a butane vape that's for sure ... Powers due to go out tonight and prob stay that way a few days!

:nunchuks:
Bring it Dorian
Be safe, mate.....and charge those batteries up!! :-)
 

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