A.G. Gancarski
If you’ve been convicted of certain crimes involving illegal marijuana possession or distribution, you won’t be able to get a medical marijuana card.
As one of the last bills signed this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis has approved SB 2514, which includes language prohibiting people convicted of drug crimes, including weed, from being part of the state’s medical program.
Per SB 2514, the Department of Health “shall immediately suspend the registration of a qualified patient charged with a violation of chapter 893 (the Florida Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act) until final disposition of the alleged offense.”
The Department “must revoke the registration of the qualified patient upon such final disposition if the qualified patient was convicted of, or pled guilty or nolo contendere to, regardless of adjudication, a violation of chapter 893 if such violation was for trafficking in, the sale, manufacture, or delivery of, or possession with intent to sell, manufacture, or deliver a controlled substance.”
Reinstatement is possible only after the prospective patient has done their time, with a new application “accompanied by a notarized attestation by the applicant that he or she has completed all terms of incarceration, probation, community control, or supervision related to the offense.”
The same conditions apply to caregivers.
Chapter 893 was first passed in 1973 (and amended often since) in an effort to “comprehensively address drug abuse prevention and control in this state.” And true to the spirit of its genesis, that definition of “drug abuse” includes people who have participated in the illegal pot market commercially.
The language covers pleas and guilty verdicts for people who “purchase more than 10 grams of any substance named or described in” the legislation or a “person who delivers, without consideration, 20 grams or less of cannabis.”
This excludes what the law calls “low-THC cannabis,” but includes Delta-6, -8, -9 and -10 and “synthetic cannabinoids.” It also excludes hemp and industrial hemp.
Harder drugs also fall under those provisions, of course. But for those who found the medical marijuana program as a way to escape the black market, the new language may complicate their legal status. While Florida may legalize adult use weed in 2026, there will likely be a conflict for a while for users who have criminal records around recreational cannabis and other illegal substances.
Chapter 893 also says that not knowing of the illegal nature of a substance is not an “affirmative defense” and that possession implies a “permissive presumption that the possessor knew of the illicit nature of the substance.”
DeSantis has taken a hard line against recreational marijuana for years, including working to kill an amendment last year that would have legalized the drug. The executive branch Hope Florida Fund funneled money into the political fight against it, while DeSantis barnstormed the state and warned that people could hold 80 joints at a time and bring them to an elementary school if that became law.
In Iowa in 2023, he said he opposed legalization because “they can throw fentanyl in” to the product. He didn’t clarify how that would happen in a dispensary, and there has yet to be a single case of fentanyl-adulterated marijuana from any dispensary in Florida since the program’s inception.
“If you look at some of the stuff that’s now coming down, there’s a lot of really bad things in it. It’s not necessarily what you would’ve had 30 years ago when someone’s in college and they’re doing something. You have some really, really bad stuff in there. So I think having the ability to identify that, I think that’s safety. And quite frankly, when you get into some of that stuff, it’s not medicinal at that point for sure,” DeSantis said in response to a reporter’s question in 2021.
In 2022, the Governor took an even harder line position against so-called “recreational” use.
“What I don’t like about it is if you go to some of these places that have done it, the stench when you’re out there, I mean, it smells so putrid,” he told reporters. “I could not believe the pungent odor that you would see in some of these places. I don’t want to see that here. I want people to be able to breathe freely.”
