Jim Rosica
An appellate court delivered the equivalent of a judicial smackdown Tuesday following its decision last month to reinstate a delay on the effect of a lower court’s ruling that medical marijuana can be smoked in Florida.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal (DCA) issued a 5-page order calling Circuit Judge Karen Gievers‘ ruling to allow patients to smoke pending appeal “an abuse of discretion.”
The state’s appeal after Gievers’ decision had placed an automatic stay, or hold, on the ruling pending review.
Gievers lifted that stay. She found that the ban – written into state law – violates the constitutional amendment on medicinal cannabis, passed by 71 percent of voters in 2016.
But the appellate judges said the smoking plaintiffs “have not shown that compelling circumstances exist to support the order vacating the stay in this appeal,” nor have they “sufficiently demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits.”
That also counters Gievers, who previously said “there is no likelihood of success” by the state on appeal.
The 1st DCA left the door open, however, saying in a footnote that Tuesday’s move “do(es) not intend to preclude full review of the issues on appeal.”
John Morgan – the Orlando attorney, entrepreneur and medical marijuana advocate behind the 2016 amendment – organized the smoking ban lawsuit. Smoking was outlawed by lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott in an implementing bill approved last year.
The plaintiffs include Cathy Jordan, a woman with Lou Gehrig’s disease who has testified she wouldn’t be alive but for smoking marijuana.
The suit is against the Department of Health, which regulates the drug through its Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
Morgan has called on Republican Gov. Rick Scott, now running for U.S. Senate, to drop further court challenges of Gievers’ ruling.
And he has since said he’s “going to look at starting a fund” toward an initiative to legalize marijuana, including recreational use, on the 2020 ballot.
Attorneys in the smoking case and in a separate case brought by Joe Redner — the Tampa strip club mogul who won a decision allowing him to grow and juice his own medical marijuana — had asked the state’s Supreme Court to take over the appeals. Those requests were denied.
“This is not surprising and why it should go to the Supreme Court now,” Morgan tweeted in response to the latest ruling. “It’s not a matter of if but when. So why waste taxpayers money. Vacating a stay is impossible. This issue will haunt @FLGovScott in November when his ‘stay’ will be over!”
Tuesday’s order was by a unanimous three-judge panel of Joseph Lewis Jr., Lori S. Rowe, and M. Kemmerly Thomas.
4 comments
Charles Ankner
July 3, 2018 at 4:26 pm
Time for the American Jurisprudence nuclear option… The U.S. Cannabis Declaration of Independence ™.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-cannabis-declaration-independence-tm-charles-ankner-cp/
Kevin Sabet
July 4, 2018 at 9:12 pm
Republican alcoholics love to arrest and incarcerate peaceful marijuana consumers while pretending to care about individual freedom.
Happy 4th of July..!
Brian Kelly
July 3, 2018 at 5:51 pm
Fear of Medical Marijuana Legalization is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever.
So please, all prohibitionists, we beg you, give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Medical Marijuana a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?
Furthermore, if all prohibitionists get when they look into that nice, big and shiny crystal ball of theirs, while wondering about the future of Medical Marijuana Legalization Nationwide, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest they return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money they shelled out for it, since it’s obviously defective.
The prohibition of marijuana has not decreased the supply nor the demand for medical marijuana at all. Not one single iota, and it never will. Just a huge and complete waste of our tax dollars to continue criminalizing sick patients and senior citizens in pain for choosing a natural, non-toxic, relatively benign plant proven to be much safer than daily handfuls of deadly, toxic, man-made, highly addictive, narcotic pain pills and other pharmaceuticals.
If prohibitionists are going to take it upon themselves to worry about “saving us all” from ourselves, then they need to start with the drug that causes more death and destruction than every other drug in the world COMBINED, which is alcohol!
Why do prohibitionists feel the continued need to vilify and demonize marijuana when they could more wisely focus their efforts on a real, proven killer, alcohol, which again causes more destruction, violence, and death than all other drugs, COMBINED?
Prohibitionists really should get their priorities straight and or practice a little live and let live. They’ll live longer, happier, and healthier, with a lot less stress if they refrain from being bent on trying to control others through Draconian Marijuana Laws.
Matt Kelly
July 4, 2018 at 6:11 am
This outrageous, backwards thinking. To think someone should go to prison because we think smoking might hurt their lungs. Does it make any sense to ruin someone’s life and imprison them for tobacco?
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