Florida Faces Missed Deadlines, Lawsuits in Wake of MMJ Rollout

Hurdles and delays abound in Florida’s medical marijuana (MMJ) program, according to Paul Armentano, Deputy Director for NORML, and have resulted in a handful of lawsuits brought forth by patients, MMJ businesses and advocacy groups.

A group of Florida patients and growers filed a lawsuit over the state’s failure to meet deadlines associated with the state’s 2016 voter-approved law, and Armentano said the litigation is indicative of the fact that even in jurisdictions where cannabis measures are approved by popular vote, the rollout of the program can be delayed due to politicians’ and regulators’ lack of support.

“To see these delayed rollouts is predictable when they are enacted in jurisdictions where the majority of politicians and regulators are not in favor of a fully functional program," Armentano said. “And that is clearly the case in Florida where lawmakers have amended the intent of the law as passed by voters, where regulators have failed to meet legislative deadlines, where regulators are behind on issuing licenses to individual organizations and where regulators have yet to meet their mandate with regard to providing licensed access to medical cannabis,” Armentano said.

Navigating the Legal Landscape

Under current state law, Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers (MMTCs) must be vertically integrated, meaning they must cultivate, process and sell directly to patients, and they are not able to contract with third-party providers that provide services related to these core functions, said Kim Rivers, CEO of Trulieve, the state’s first fully licensed MMTC.

“There are definitely challenges related to that, and there are technologies and certain products we would love to be able to bring to market in Florida, but because of that particular restriction, we’re prevented from doing that,” she said.

Florida’s medical marijuana law has changed dramatically since it was initially passed in 2014 as a CBD law, Rivers said, adding that in November 2016, voters passed Amendment 2, which expanded the program’s qualifying conditions and implemented several other key changes.

NORML was satisfied with the voter-approved language, which did not place restrictions on how patients administer cannabis and gave broad permissions to physicians to determine which patients are best treated with cannabis, Armentano said.

“It was only after the fact when the legislature enacted their own language with regard to enacting the bill that I think it became less functional and more restrictive,” he said.

The legislature has specifically prohibited flower, with the exception of flower sold in a sealed, tamper-proof container intended for vaporizing, Rivers said. Trulieve has a flower-based product pending with the state Department of Health (DOH), and the company recently filed a petition to request a decision because the time frame for the department’s response has expired. Other products, such as edibles, are awaiting DOH rulemaking.

Trulieve offers multiple types of vaporization products, including a handheld ground flower vaporizing device with corresponding vapor pods that contain ground plant material, and multiple kinds of oil-based vaporizers.

“We hope to get those requirements soon and are prepared to take the next steps to bring products that do comply with those rules to market as quickly as possible,” Rivers said. “It’s a lot of … trying to be as involved as possible in this conversation, and to be a voice for product innovation and product diversity and a voice for patients as those regulatory discussions are occurring, and then to be as responsive as we possibly can be in developing products and submitting them for approval so we can continue to ensure that patients have a variety of products to select from in Florida.”

In addition to the product restrictions, regulators were to have all the state’s MMTC licenses issued by the beginning of October. Ten new licenses were to be granted in addition to the seven that already existed, but that has not happened yet. Armentano said it is unclear when the licenses will be issued, and there is also a backlog of patients who have applied for medical marijuana cards.

Addressing the Smoking Ban

In another pending lawsuit, Florida for Care representatives took legal action to challenge the statewide ban on the smoking of medicinal cannabis.

Smoking bans are not unique to Florida, Armentano said, and are a trend in modern medical states, beginning when New York prohibited smoking in a compromise bill to get the governor’s signature on the law.

Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Louisiana have similar language in their medical marijuana laws, Armentano noted.

NORML has argued against regulations that limit or restrict patients’ access to whole plant herbal cannabis, and Armentano said the prohibition of smoking demonstrates lawmakers’ fundamental misunderstanding of how cannabis works, the way patients generally prefer to use it and the advantages that come with the inhalation of cannabis, such as its fast-acting therapeutic qualities, the ability to better regulate dosage and the substantial amount of research that has been done on herbal cannabis.

“If I had to try and guess, [the smoking ban] simply comes from a backlash with regard to the idea of smoking in our society,” Armentano said. “There also may be a belief that conventional medicines are generally consumed orally. They’re typically in pills or in capsules, so if you are defining marijuana as a medicine, it may be somewhat natural for lawmakers who don’t understand this issue fairly well to simply presume that oral forms like capsules and pills are the ideal way cannabis should be administered because if it’s medicine, it ought to look and be administered the way other medicines appear and are consumed.”

Rivers acknowledged that lawsuits are slow, and said these issues will continue to evolve as more patients are approved.

“I think the conversation will hopefully shift to a more patient-centered dialogue,” she said, adding that she is pleased with the progress that has been made in such a short period of time, and said the stigma around medical cannabis is fading while lawmakers’ mindsets seem to be changing from viewing the medical marijuana program as something they are obligated to implement to something they are passionate about.

“I think the more the program grows, the more the conversation will shift to really ensuring that Florida has one of the best medical programs in the country,” she said. “There’s really no reason why we shouldn’t.”

Photos courtesy of Trulieve