Peter Schorsch
One voice which was heard loud and clear at the Department of Health’s negotiated rulemaking committee was an individual without standing in the state Florida. Indeed, Joel Stanley dominated much of Wednesday’s conversation covering all issues from the importance of access to cannabis strains, to hiring chemists and other out of state experts with prior cannabis experience.
The oft repeated refrain, “what do you think, Joel?” was heard countless times as Director of the Office of Compassionate Use Patricia Nelson deferred to Joel Stanley on numerous issues such as requiring the cultivation of marijuana and the dispensing of cannabis oil to occur at one location or allowing a licensee to operate more than one retail facility.
Selected growers, medical and legal professionals and patient advocates were asked to participate in a negotiated rulemaking process after a judge had invalidated DOH’s first set of regulations.
About 100 Florida nurseries would be eligible to apply for licenses to grow the low-THC, high-CBD product. But they must also prove they can stay in business for the two years in which licenses would be active and show that they would be able to finance the start-up of the new pot-growing businesses, notes Dara Kam of the News Service of Florida.. The law also requires growers to post a $5 million bond. Equipment for testing could cost at least $1 million, but still up in the air Wednesday evening was how to perform tests on the product, usually delivered in oil form and ingested as a paste or vaporized, to ensure that it meets the low-THC, high-CBD requirements of the law.
Nelson scheduled 14 hours for the first day of negotiations and left open how long talks will continue Thursday. The panel spent more than two hours and 15 minutes discussing 20 definitions in the proposed rule Wednesday morning.
There were several other places in the road where the discussions broke down.
The debate over whether Florida nurseries can bring on a marijuana cultivation expert as a contractor, rather than an employee was particularly telling. With nearly the entire table in agreement that the industry standard is to bring on plant specialists as contract positions, Nelson looked to Joel Stanley for guidance before deciding that she wasn’t comfortable with anything less than employee status.
Never mind industry standards and practice.
Never mind the bias a cannabis expert might bring to the issue.
Thus far the negotiated rulemaking process probably hasn’t felt much like a negotiating to anyone except Joel Stanley.
Backing up Stanley was another panelist, parent advocate Holley Moseley. Sunshine Law aside, these two panelists are business partners that have forged an alliance to enter the Florida market. Moseley has set up the Florida branch of Realm of Caring, the nonprofit arm of Stanley brother enterprises, headed by Joel Stanley. The Miami Herald covered the partnership noting: “Under the agreement with the Stanley’s nurseries in Florida will not be able to get the Charlotte’s Web plan unless they receive it from the Moseleys and the Stanleys.”
No wonder Moseley was so pleased with Wednesday’s torturous session.
“Its’ been the most beneficial of all the committee meetings that we’ve had,” Moseley said during a break. “I’m excited to see what happens at the end of the day tomorrow (Thursday). I hope that we have a final rule that everyone at the table is happy with.”
Nelson’s goal is to have a rule able to withstand a challenge ready for lawmakers to ratify when they convene the annual legislative session in March. If the group fails to meet the goal then a low-THC/high-CBD cannabis oil may not be available in Florida for epileptic children and cancer patients until 2016.
