A.G. Gancarski
The big news coming out of the Jacksonville City Council meeting: the repeal of 2015-436, the ordinance passed two weeks ago issuing a moratorium on Charlotte’s Web cultivation, processing, and distribution.
Recall that two weeks ago, as almost the very last act in the Council meeting, the Council passed the moratorium by a unanimous vote.
Since then, things changed. Questions were raised about the lobbyist who advocated for the passing of the bill, who was not registered to lobby for the bill. Certain Council members were telling people, off the record, that they wished they hadn’t voted for the moratorium. By the time the agenda meeting wrapped, an ordinance repealing the Charlotte’s Web bill had been added to the addendum, introduced by Warren Jones and co-sponsored by Matt Schellenberg and John Crescimbeni.
With scant debate, the resolution went through 16-2.
A companion resolution, to establish a new moratorium, was discussed next. 2015-485 had some similar language. As the bill’s sponsor, Councilman Bill Gulliford, put it in discussion, the bill was trying to limit dispensing but not cultivation until the issue of zoning for dispensing was resolved.
Lori Boyer clarified intent for the benefit of the concerned parents and caregivers in attendance, saying that the intent was not to “preclude people from having access.” She also issued a couple of floor amendments: one for a 120 day moratorium, and the other to restrict cultivation to areas zoned for agriculture.
After considerable debate, it was decided that the bill would be referred back to Land Use and Zoning and Rules Committees for refinement, and that it would be subject to a public hearing process.
After the debate, there was considerable rejoicing in the City Hall atrium. I talked to one activist, Holley Moseley, a mother of a twelve year old who had been plagued with epileptic seizures since she was a day old.
“We tried everything that modern medicine has to try,” she said, adding that without medicinal cannabis, her daughter could die.
She described this as a “step closer” to a workable solution, and described the effort of activists as concerted, with emails, calls, and petitions. Moseley said that Councilmen Gulliford and Greg Anderson were especially receptive.
“You have to put a face to it,” Moseley said, adding that “low THC” cannabis was not a danger to anyone.
