James Call
The Senate Regulated Industries took about 90 minutes to do what the Department of Health, growers and investors haven’t been able to do since last August — agree on a regulatory structure allowing Florida’s first legal marijuana crop to be planted.
“This is about fulfilling a promise,” Sen. Rob Bradley said of his glitch bill for the Charlotte’s Web law passed last year but blocked from implementation by lawsuits.
“There are simply too many inherent flaws in the system the Legislature set up, and I think the DOH needs some help from the Legislature to get this process moving,” said Bradley introducing SPB 7066, his proposed fix for last year’s Charlotte’s Web law.
DOH has conducted 70 hours of hearings and workshops on a regulatory structure allowing the cultivation of marijuana and processing oil from the plant to treat epilepsy and cancer patients. The effort has drawn two lawsuits preventing DOH from issuing the five licenses lawmakers authorized to start a medicinal marijuana industry.
Foreshadowing how the meeting would be played out, 10 minutes before Bradley gaveled it to order, the committee room was full and marijuana lobbyists discussed a Wall Street Journal article on THC/CBD ratios and compared talking points about Bradley’s Charlotte’s Web fix.
Bradley did not address THC levels in his fix, telling the audience he did not want the state to go there. But 10 of the first 12 speakers basically told Bradley that with a 0.8 percent THC level he was not fulfilling any promise to sick people. They handed out information detailing research showing a higher level of THC to be more effective for more illnesses and the industry’s bottom line.
“It is almost cruel because it will not help terminally ill patients who are now forced to take painkillers that don’t provide true relief,” said former Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, lobbying for Florida for Care, which is opposed to the bill.
“It will not be effective for a patient like myself,” said Thomas Quigley, who told the committee damage to his liver from pain medicine prescribed after spinal surgery had made him a liver patient.
“I was hoping you would expand the bill to allow for other types of medical cannabis to be used and for that reason I oppose it,” the Hillsborough County resident said.
So it went for more than an hour. Mothers with toddlers in their arms pleaded for higher THC levels to spare their children the risk of damaging side effects from prescription medicine, and a father told of his son’s brain being damaged during what seemed an endless cycle of seizures.
Florida’s Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014 is so limited that the state is not considered among the 23 states allowing the use of cannabis medicine.
“I understand where Sen. Bradley is coming from and I wouldn’t be surprised before this process is all over that the THC level could be higher,” said Barney Bishop of the Florida Smart Justice Alliance. “I think probably capping it at about 15 percent is probably a fair number to go.”
The push for higher THC levels diverted attention from a clever maneuver Bradley is trying to execute to avoid further delay in getting the medicinal oil to market.
Many think the legal dispute preventing implementation of last year’s law is driven by growers’ concerns that engaging in a marijuana business will create banking problems. Banks won’t do business with cannabis entrepreneurs because of federal regulations designed to thwart racketeers and the illegal drug networks.
Bradley’s fix redefines an applicant for a marijuana license from a nursery in business for more than 30 years with an inventory of 400,000 plants to an entity with at least a 2-year lease of land meeting those qualifications and is owned by a nursery — setting up a separate legal entity and protecting the assets of the nursery.
The fix also does away with one license for each of five regions and authorizes 20 licenses to grow marijuana and dispense cannabis oil. It addresses the concern that only five licenses would limit access to cannabis medicine, raised by the family that filed the rule challenge said Chris Ralph, their attorney. Ralph said there is no intention to withdraw the challenge until something is implemented. That is unlikely to occur before an April 14 hearing date on the challenge.
“There are no other bills — this is our bill. You can say it does not go far enough (but) this is a step forward. It’s a step forward,” Sen. Aaron Bean said. “You can say all of the things it doesn’t do but let’s look at what it does. It moves Florida forward and it honors the promise we made with Senate Bill 1030 of last year.”
SPB 7066 authorizes human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, paraplegia, quadriplegia, or terminal illness to be treated with cannabis. The new language also authorizes the use of cannabis “to alleviate symptoms caused by a treatment for such (authorized) disease.”
Regulated Industries approved the proposal with Sen. Maria Sachs casting the lone no vote.
