Tag: Christian Bax

Jim RosicaJuly 27, 2018
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11min2318
Christian Bax, director of Florida’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU), has stepped down after a controversial three-year tenure that frustrated patients, angered lawmakers, and witnessed an explosion in litigation. His resignation is effective Aug. 10. Deputy director Courtney Coppola will serve as interim director, Department of Health spokesman Devin Galleta said Friday. Bax’s resignation letter, released […]

Jim RosicaMay 24, 2018
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5min456
Despite lawmakers’ concerns, the Department of Health has final say over how medical marijuana plays out in Florida, the state’s top regulator suggested. The agency regulates the drug through its Office of Medical Marijuana Use. The office’s director, Christian Bax, spoke with reporters Thursday after a rulemaking hearing in Tallahassee. A legislative panel took Bax’s office to task […]

Jim RosicaMay 9, 2018
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5min1386
A legislative panel is again taking the state’s medical marijuana regulators to task, asking whether they are “refusing to modify the rules” governing the drug. Kenneth Plante, coordinator of the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee (JAPC), fired off a letter Tuesday to Department of Health general counsel Nichole Geary. In it, he said the department’s Office […]

Jim RosicaApril 13, 2018
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4min658
Calling it a “blue sky opportunity,” the state’s chief medical marijuana regulator opened a rule-making workshop Friday with a twist: No rules. Agencies usually issue draft rules weeks in advance of a workshop, so there’s something to comment on when interested parties arrive. Many attendees were lobbyists for marijuana providers. But Christian Bax, head of the […]

Jim RosicaApril 2, 2018
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6min1430
Trulieve, a medical marijuana provider, on Monday filed a “constitutional challenge” against the state’s Department of Health over how many retail stores it can open, and where, under current law. An attorney for the company, which is seeking “non-monetary declaratory or injunctive relief,” provided a copy of the complaint by George Hackney Inc., the Gadsden County nursery […]

Jim RosicaMarch 9, 2018
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8min940
[Ed. Note — This story, first posted Thursday, was updated Friday.] Lawmakers on Thursday included a provision to withhold more than $1.9 million in Department of Health salaries and benefits in the final 2018-19 state budget until regulators fully implement medical marijuana. The proviso language, which “qualifies or restricts a specific appropriation,” means certain Health officials will get […]


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