TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Terminally ill patients would have access to marijuana under a measure that would legalize full-strength pot for the first time in Florida if signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott.
The proposal, approved Monday by the Senate, would add cannabis to a list of experimental drugs available to patients diagnosed with illnesses that could result in death within a year without life-saving interventions.
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The measure also addresses the state's existing low-THC law, intended to aid patients -- including children with severe epilepsy -- who suffer from chronic seizures or cancer. Implementation of the 2014 law is more than a year behind schedule because of legal challenges, and this year's legislation is aimed at preventing further delays.
The Republican-dominated Legislature approved the medical cannabis for dying patients months before voters will have the opportunity to decide on a much broader marijuana initiative. A proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot would allow patients with a wide variety of illnesses to use the marijuana treatment if their doctors order it. A similar measure narrowly failed to pass in 2014.
During debate Monday on the Legislature's measure (HB 307), critics of the plan said it does little to aid sick Floridians but instead benefits a handful of nurseries selected by health officials as the state's five dispensing organizations.
"The system is designed for profit, not to help patients," said Sen. Jeff Clemens, a Lake Worth Democrat who has for years tried to legalize medical marijuana for a swath of ailing Floridians. "A vote for this bill is a vote for the same old, same old. A vote for this bill isn't a vote for fixing the problem. It's a vote for continuing the problem."
But Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican who sponsored this year's measure and who was instrumental in passage of the low-THC law, said his aim was to get the cannabis products to children whose parents urged lawmakers in 2014 to approve the substances, which they believe can dramatically reduce or end life-threatening seizures.
"Now two years later, not one child in the state of Florida has received help … not one. And that makes me angry. And it makes me embarrassed. And it's time to end it," Bradley said.
The Senate voted 28-11 to approve the proposal, which also was passed by the House last week. Under it, the five nurseries -- and their affiliates -- chosen to grow, process and distribute marijuana low in euphoria-inducing THC will also be responsible for growing the full-strength medical marijuana. The expectation is that the same dispensing organizations would also be allowed to provide the pot products to a vastly expanded patient base if the constitutional amendment passes.
The 2014 law authorized nurseries that have been in business for 30 years and grow at least 400,000 plants to apply for one of five highly sought-after licenses to grow, process and distribute cannabis products that are low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabadiol, or CBD.
Doctors were supposed to be able to order the low-THC cannabis products for patients more than a year ago, but legal challenges delayed implementation of the law, spurring frustrated lawmakers to propose the changes in this year's legislation.
Health officials selected the five "dispensing organizations" in November, prompting another round of challenges. Hearings in the cases are slated to run from March through the end of July. Meanwhile, the dispensing organizations are in the process of beginning to cultivate the non-euphoric marijuana.
The bill awaiting Scott's action includes provisions that would allow each of the five applicants selected by health officials in November to keep their licenses and also would allow applicants whose challenges are successful to get licenses.
The measure would also allow for three new dispensing organizations, once doctors have ordered medical marijuana treatments for at least 250,000 patients. It also includes an accommodation for black farmers, who complained they were shut out from applying for the licenses because none of the state's black farmers met the criteria for the licenses. The three new dispensing organizations would not have to meet the criteria required of nurseries in the low-THC law.
Of the 23 states where medical marijuana is legal, none of reached the 250,000 patient threshold, according to Clemens.
"So that provision of the bill simply is useless," he said.
Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, said the measure does nothing to fix the state's broken system but instead perpetuates a "state-sanctioned drug cartel."
But Bradley said he is not focused on how the bill would benefit the state's marijuana businesses.
"What I'm trying to focus on is making sure we get these substances in the hands of these suffering families as quickly as possible, and I'll let the market work it out," he said.
The bill -- and the current law -- restricts the proliferation of "pot shops" experienced by other states where marijuana is legal, argued Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach.
"If we just turn loose the free market, every strip center won't have just one pot shop, every strip center will have three pot shops," Bean said.