Trulieve’s number of dispensaries can get as high as patients want

If there’s not one there already, a Trulieve dispensary may soon buzz into your hometown.

On Friday, a judge ruled Florida’s limit on locations for licensed medical marijuana provider adds an unconstitutional restriction and threatens patient health.

“The evidence clearly and conclusively establishes beyond any doubt that the imposition of regional and statewide caps on the number of dispensaries for each licensed [medical marijuana treatment center] does not support Voter-Approved constitutional goals,” wrote Leon County Circuit Judge Karen Gievers.

Ruling in favor of Trulieve, Florida’s fastest growing medical marijuana provider and the one on track to hit the statutory limit first in Florida, sued over the cap a year ago.

The ruling issued Friday clarified a decision Gievers made in Trulieve’s favor in January.

Gievers agreed with Trulieve last month, but lawyers for the company asked her to revisit an order that also struck down the state’s “vertical integration” system requiring medical marijuana operators to handle all aspects of the cannabis trade, including growing, processing and dispensing.

Gievers’ order Friday replaces the Jan. 2 ruling, which, according to Trulieve, went “beyond the scope” of what the marijuana operator had sought.

Gievers said when the Florida Legislature established statute, lawmakers used a language different from what voters approved with the passage of Amendment 2 in 2016.

“Since being granted a license, Trulieve has operated with a strong emphasis on patient safety and access,” said Trulieve attorney David Miller.

“Limiting the number of dispensaries affects patients negatively. Dispensaries not only allow for more efficient and less costly patient access, they promote in-person communication, helping patients make more informed decisions in regard to their care. This order will change the landscape of the medical marijuana market in Florida for the better.”

Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers also hailed the ruling, noting her company originally received a license for Florida’s Northwest region, an area that is the most rural region of the state.

“As a result, during the original application process, a cornerstone of our application was patient access and being able to dispense to patients in less populated areas. The court has sided with the argument that access to medicine is critical; Trulieve stands ready to fulfill our commitment to open dispensaries in these areas,” Rivers said in a prepared statement.

The amendment decriminalizing medical marijuana in Florida included a provision explicitly forbidding lawmakers to enact provisions inconsistent with voter intent.

Florida’s implementing legislation requires “vertical integration,” meaning that licensed users must handle all parts of the manufacturing and sale process including cultivating, processing, transporting and dispensing the marijuana.

The 2017 law, among other things, limited the number of licenses that could be provided to so-called medical marijuana treatment centers, or MMTCs, and set an initial cap of 25 dispensaries for each operator. The cap, which gradually increases as the number of eligible patients in a statewide database increases and is now at 30, is slated to end in 2020.

Trulieve also argued that the cap was problematic because it was imposed after the company had already opened 14 retail locations throughout the state. Trulieve — which had 14 dispensaries before the new law went into effect and would have reached the 30-dispensary cap by the end of January — would have chosen different locales had it known the number of storefronts would be limited, the company’s lawyers argued.

But Gievers’ ruling called that limit “artificial,” and that the amendment did not allow for the arbitrary limit on patients’ access to their medicine.

The statutory cap “erects barriers that needlessly increase patients’ costs, risks, and inconvenience, delay access to products, and reduce patients’ practical choice, information, privacy and safety,” the judge wrote, adding that the limit on the number of dispensaries, “even if time-limited, is the kind of regulation that the amendment was intended to eliminate.”