Jim Rosica
Where there’s no smoke, there’s a John Morgan lawsuit.
Morgan—attorney, entrepreneur and main backer of Florida’s medical marijuana amendment—Wednesday said he still plans to sue the state despite lawmakers brokering a deal to include implementation of the measure in this week’s Special Session.
Mainly, Morgan’s hair’s on fire that Florida doesn’t allow smokeable medicinal cannabis. Morgan first said he planned to sue last month.
“Done is better than perfect and this is far from perfect,” he said in a statement to FloridaPolitics.com. “I will be suing the state to allow smoke. It was part of my amendment.”
The marijuana amendment refers to allowing smokeable cannabis only obliquely, however.
It says in one section, for instance, the state can’t “require any accommodation of any on-site medical use of marijuana in any correctional institution or detention facility or place of education or employment, or of smoking medical marijuana in any public place.”
The amendment also uses the state law definition of marijuana that includes “every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the plant or its seeds or resin,” seeming to suggest smokeable cannabis is included.
“These legislators don’t understand capitalism because almost all of them have never run a business or made a payroll or made money,” Morgan added. “Some are so broke they need a cosigner to pay cash.
“The free market will sort this all out,” he added. House Speaker Richard “Corcoran was right. Cream rises. Price and service dictate who wins and who loses. Just ask Kmart, Sears and J.C. Penney. And ask Wal-Mart about Amazon.”
Lawmakers reached agreement early Wednesday, hours before the start of this week’s Special Session, to include medical marijuana implementation in the call.
The deal calls for 10 new growers to be licensed this year, in addition to the seven existing ones. Five new growers would be added for every 100,000 patients, and a limit of 25 retail locations per authorized grower will be OK’d. That cap will “sunset” in 2020.
The 2017 Legislative Session ended without a bill to implement the state’s medical marijuana constitutional amendment. An implementing bill gives guidance and instructions to state agencies on how to enforce state law.
The medical cannabis constitutional amendment passed in 2016, with just over 71 percent of statewide voters approving the measure.
8 comments
James Sotcheff
June 8, 2017 at 9:46 am
The people have spoken and the State doesn’t seem to care.
Pat
June 8, 2017 at 9:59 am
I believe that if you have a medical problem and if marijuana is a solution to a better quality of life for anyone they should not be denied the right to be pain free, and to choose which form they use to relieve that pain. People use other drugs every day get behind a wheel and drive, I have yet to hear marijuana has caused harm to anyone.
Michael
June 8, 2017 at 11:30 am
Dragging your feet on this matter only makes the people wonder Can the government pick what they want to do and not do what the people voted on. Time to replace the old guard..
harry houston
June 8, 2017 at 3:41 pm
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Drug Enforcement Administration
In The Matter Of
MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION
Docket No. 86-22
OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF
FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION OF
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE
FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge
DATED: SEPTEMBER 6, 1988
Lisa Blanck
June 8, 2017 at 6:18 pm
FL house and senate are blowing off the will of the voters. Smokeable Medical Marijuana is been rejected. Your votes don’t matter. Remember that when election day rolls around.
Tevares
June 8, 2017 at 8:06 pm
We live in a world that would rather give people pain killers that have herion than medical marijuana
Sonny Batson
June 9, 2017 at 7:55 am
regulateflorida.com/printpetition/
Print, sign and mail this petition for a vote for full legal adult use in 2018. The watered-down version of Amendment 2 doesn’t go far enough anyway.
Carla deloge
June 10, 2017 at 10:34 pm
I’m so glad he is suing them when you vote for something it should stand!if your vote wins of course.
Comments are closed.