5 growers get state’s 1st pot licenses

The Florida Department of Health has awarded licenses to Knox Nursery in Central Florida and four other growers in other regions of the state to become the first in Florida to legally grow marijuana and manufacture medicines from it.

Knox, a Winter Garden greenhouse operator, was selected from among eight companies vying to get the state’s exclusive license for the 18-county region that forms a broad swath from St. Petersburg to Daytona Beach and includes Orlando.

The Florida Department of Health issued the northwest-region license to Hackney Nursery Co.; the northeast to Chestnut Hill Tree Farm; the

southwest to Alpha Foliage; and the southeast to Costa Nursery Farms.

The decisions come after a drawn-out process for the state to set up a limited medical-marijuana program. The course began when the Legislature approved the law in 2014 but has been slowed and hampered by legal challenges and unexpected complexities. The licenses were announced almost a year later than lawmakers had expected.

“At last, families seeking the relief only this drug can offer are a step closer to help. It’s a shame that more than 15 months after the Legislature took this important step, the bureaucracy is catching up,” said one of the sponsors, state Rep. Katie Edwards, DPlantation.

The licensees still must acquire and grow the plants, and process, bottle and sell the drugs. The state is giving them 75 days to start and an additional 210 days to cultivate.

In a written statement, Knox Nursery owner Bruce Knox said, “We are humbled by the understanding that our mission is to bring comfort and relief to patients suffering from painful and debilitating illnesses.”

His statement did not say how quickly his company might have products for sale, but said, “We look forward to working with state regulators to bring this important product to the families in the State of Florida as soon as possible.”

Knox and the others can only grow plants that are very low in the chemical THC, which gets people high, and rich in the chemical CBD, which has shown some effectiveness in treating a variety of neurological disorders.

The medicines will be available from retail outlets owned and operated by the growers for patients who have intractable forms of epilepsy or other neurological disorders that cause seizures or tremors. A doctor certified in the state’s program must approve.

And yet, after all the delays, patients and their families hold on to only cautious optimism, said Seth Hyman of Weston, whose daughter Rebecca, 10, suffers from a severe seizure disorder. After all, he said, the medicine best known by the brand name “Charlotte’s Web” has not worked for everyone.

“I think every patient like my daughter deserves the right and the chance to try it,” Hyman said. “But I think patients and caregivers and parents should be cautiously optimistic.”

Knox Nursery submitted plans for an Orlando pharmacy near Florida Hospital’s downtown campus, plus similar locations in Winter Garden and Tampa.

Knox’s victory means defeat for seven other growers who were seeking the Central Florida license: DeLeon’s Bromeliads Inc., Dewar Nurseries Inc., McCrory’s Sunny Hill Nursery, Razbuton Inc., Redland Nursery Inc., Spring Oaks Greenhouse Inc. and Treadwell Nursery.

The state selected the winners by having three judges score each application. Every application ran hundreds of pages.

The score cards, and the rules behind the application process, were developed last winter by a 12-member committee appointed by the state. It included some growers, including at least four who represent companies that wound up winning licenses: Knox, Hackney, Chestnut Hill and Costa. It is unclear whether Alpha also had a representative on that board; the publicly released copy of Alpha’s application redacted identifications of all the company’s principals and agents.

Knox Nursery, founded in 1962 by Jim and Nada Knox, has been familyowned ever since and is fully owned by their grandson Bruce Knox. That makes the nursery true to the spirit of the law the Florida Legislature approved in spring 2014, when it deliberately tried to steer the marijuana business to longtime Floridaowned companies.

At least some of the other applicants added layers of investors, partnerships and holding companies so that, though they remained legally under the original ownership, they appeared to have complex structures with significant out-of-state interests.

Knox’s application declared that the company “will remain 100 percent in Bruce’s control.”

Knox operates one of the largest nurseries in the state, claiming 125 million plants a year, mostly plugs, of 5,000 different varieties of plants. The company also claims its plants have long been grown with environmentally conscious best-management practices, and that the company has 700,000 square feet of high-tech greenhouses.

The company concedes it has no experience growing cannabis. But it hired two consultants who do. Matthew Harrison has run cannabis operations in Colorado, California and Illinois. Jill Lamoureux has operated cannabis farms and dispensaries in Colorado and has worked as a cannabis lobbyist in Colorado and Washington state. She also had a seat on the Florida rule-writing committee last winter.