Jac VerSteegPresident Barack Obama’s decision to push for normalized relations with Cuba eventually can provide new access to special smoking materials for Floridians and tourists.
But I’m not talking about Cohibas. I’m talking about “legal” marijuana.
As Bloomberg has explained, Obama’s decision to lift some restrictions on Cuba will not result in a flood of Cuban cigars. Individuals will be allowed to bring in a small number of cigars, but a true open market would require Congress to end the broader embargo.
That will take time, but it is sure to happen. As it does, the dominoes that could lead to legal marijuana sales in Florida already are falling. The U.S. Justice Department this month released a memo telling federal prosecutors to allow Native American tribes to grow marijuana on tribal lands without threat of prosecution.
So far it’s all pretty theoretical. Neither the Seminoles nor the Miccosukees are ready to jump into the buzz biz. But they are studying it.
And there will be more and more reason to do so. Indian casinos are facing increasing competition nationally. And non-Indian gambling interests for years have been pushing the Florida Legislature to help them compete with tribal casinos. Pari-mutuels in Miami-Dade and Broward counties already won the right to run slots. Other gambling venues, like Palm Beach County’s Kennel Club, have added poker rooms. Lawmakers in 2015 yet again will be tempted to approve Las Vegas-style “destination resorts” in Miami and elsewhere to compete with tribal casinos.
Such resorts would be problematic, since they could encroach on the exclusivity of certain card games like blackjack that were guaranteed in the soon-to-expire Compact that then-Gov. Charlie Crist signed with the Seminoles. The tribe gives Florida about $116 million a year for those exclusive rights. If the Compact goes away, the money goes away.
The promise – whether it would pan out or not – is that the new gambling venues would more than make up for that lost revenue.
But there is perhaps a more potent competitor on the horizon: A return of Cuban casinos. Consider this item from the South Florida Sun Sentinel:
“Before there was Las Vegas, there was Havana, and if President Obama’s efforts to thaw U.S.- Cuba relations succeed, gamblers might return to the island nation.
“‘I don’t think there’s any question every casino executive in the United States and beyond is thinking of a plan to get into Cuba,’ says Bob Jarvis, a Nova Southeastern University professor who is an expert on gambling issues. “It was the playland for the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, and it could be again. It’s fabulous. It’s going to be huge, absolutely huge.’”
The Seminoles, looking for a new source of revenue and a way to compete with casinos in Cuba and elsewhere in America, easily could go into the marijuana business, particularly if the Legislature balks at expanding medical marijuana. The Seminoles might give up exclusivity to blackjack but gain exclusivity to, shall we say, a special kind of jackpot.
Imagine the synergy for Florida: tribal casinos, pain treatment centers and toker poker. High rollers, indeed.
Jac Wilder VerSteeg is editor of Context Florida. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
