Joe Gruters files then withdraws medical marijuana home grow legislation, will remove hemp rules the first bill floated

Bills to cap pot potency were stamped out. Image via AP.

Patients in Florida’s medical marijuana program may have recourse to grow their own soon, while participants in the hemp market won’t be subject to new rules after all if a second version of a bill briefly filed Monday becomes law.

SB 334, filed by Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota, would give patients the right to grow two pot plants at home for personal consumption. It also contemplated changes to the hemp market, but the sponsor withdrew the bill, telling POLITICO Florida Playbook the bill would come back as strictly a  home grow measure.

The cannabis plant provision of the bill would allow renters the same privilege to grow as homeowners, but with the caveat that landlords must provide documentation of consent.

The bill would not allow for more than two plants in a given household, meaning patients who cohabitate would still be restricted to two plants.

The bill stipulates that the plants would have to be grown in a place that can’t be seen from the street, nor from any other “public view, including a view from another private property, without the use of binoculars, aircraft, or other special aids.”

Furthermore, the patient growing the plants would have to ensure plants “are located in an enclosed, locked space to prevent access by unauthorized persons and persons younger than 21 years of age.”

Violations, should the bill become law, would be punishable as a first degree misdemeanor, which can lead to a year of jail time, a $1,000 fine, and probation.

Meanwhile, the bill looked to put guardrails on the hemp industry just months after Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed similar rules regulating the market, which led to hemp industry support for the Governor’s successful bid to kill a constitutional amendment legalizing adult-use recreational pot.

Among the proposals that were in the first version but won’t be in the second are a rule that would cap delta 9 THC to two milligrams a serving in hemp products, banning deltas 8 and 10, HHC, and THCA, which when combusted has similar effects to delta 9.

In the withdrawn bill, hemp extract could only be sold by businesses permitted to do so, and products could not be “attractive to children.” Shops could not advertise their products, even with signs visible from the street, and they could not claim that they have “THC” available. Furthermore, the bill had stipulated that hemp extract could not be available in a form that could be smoked.

In a transmittal letter accompanying last year’s veto, DeSantis said the bill would “impose debilitating regulatory burdens” and “dramatic disruption and harm” on businesses in the sector. He then urged the Legislature and stakeholders to engage during the 2025 Session to develop a regulatory framework for the industry grounded in “sensible, non-arbitrary regulation” that would “provide much-needed stability” to the marketplace.

JD McCormick, the President of the Florida Healthy Alternatives Association, said last year DeSantis “saw this bill for what it was – a way to sweep the hemp industry out of business in the state of Florida. The hardworking Floridians that make up this industry know what it means to follow the law and work within the lines.”

Gruters appears to have acceded to that argument after reconsideration, and a clean home grow bill for marijuana patients appears to be the product.