ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – Some local families were relieved when St. Johns County commissioners did not come to a decision concerning regulations on medical marijuana Tuesday night.
Commissioners voted to wait on imposing local regulations on nurseries that may be granted a state permit to cultivate and dispense medical marijuana.
The commissioners did not want to decide on anything because they don't know if any nursery in St. Johns County will get a license. The state will choose only five nurseries and only one will represent all of northeast Florida.
Holley Moseley hopes medical marijuana will be available this year because she said her 12-year-old daughter RayAnn desperately needs it.
"We've done it all -- medicines, diets, surgeries," Moseley said.
Moseley said her daughter's current medication has a black-box warning, which means the medication has a deadly side effect. RayAnn also takes Klonopin, a medication used to treat anxiety and seizures, every night; but its long-term effects are unknown.
"First day of life, RayAnn started having seizures. Ever since then she's had a seizure every day," Moseley said.
In the car ride to the county meeting, Moseley said RayAnn had six seizures, and during an interview with News4Jax, she had another seizure.
Moseley said she doesn't want her daughter to live like this for the rest of her life, which is one reason why she hopes to get RayAnn on medical marijuana as soon as possible.
"You can eat it and smoke it all day long. Nothing is going to happen to you. It's only available in oil, so a patient will pick it up in a medicine bottle with a syringe. The patient gets very little, a little drop of oil. The plant itself is not dangerous," Moseley said. "The side effects reported are better mood, better appetite, sleeping better, decreased seizures. No negative side effects reported. It fills us with so much hope."
Loop's Nursery and Greenhouses Inc. is one of many vying for a license to cultivate and dispense medical marijuana in northeast Florida.
The county will revisit the issue once licenses are granted to see if it wants to regulate the process on a local level. But the county recognizes the state will already have rules and regulations in place.