More medical marijuana licenses could go to Black Florida farmers

TALLAHASSEE — State lawmakers have signed off again on expanding the number of medical marijuana licenses earmarked for Black farmers, opening the door for three applicants who lost out earlier.

Expansion of such licenses was included in a wide-ranging Department of Health bill (SB 1582) that also addresses such issues as septic-tank inspections and screening for newborns and pregnant women.

A provision added to the bill in the last week of this year’s legislative session would help at least three Black farmers who had sought medical-pot licenses but were deemed ineligible to apply by state officials.

Passage of the bill is the latest twist in a drawn-out effort to allow Black farmers to join the state’s cannabis program, which has exploded in size since voters approved a constitutional amendment broadly authorizing medical marijuana in 2016.

If signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the bill would bring to six the number of potentially lucrative medical-marijuana licenses earmarked for Black farmers with ties to decades-old litigation about discriminatory lending practices by federal officials.

A 2017 law that provided an overall framework for the industry required health officials to issue a license to a Black farmer with ties to the litigation, known as the “Pigford” cases. The law also required prospective licensees to show they had conducted business in Florida for at least five consecutive years before applying.

State health officials began accepting applications for the Black farmer license in March 2022, and six months later announced they intended to award the license to Suwannee County-based farmer Terry Donnell Gwinn.

All of the 11 other applicants who lost out challenged the decision, including Moton Hopkins. Hopkins was the top-scoring applicant but the 84-year-old Ocala-area grower died before the state’s decision about the license was finalized.

Part of this year’s bill, however, appears to clear the path for Hopkins’ heirs and partners, who have launched legal and administrative challenges in their quest for a license.

The bill sets up a 90-day “cure” period for losing applications that meet certain criteria, including if “the applicant died after March 25, 2022,” which was the last day to apply for the licenses.

“In the case of the death of an applicant under this paragraph, the department must issue the license to the heirs of the applicant,” the measure says.

Sen. Tracie Davis, a Jacksonville Democrat who helped shepherd this year’s effort to expand the number of licenses, said the proposed changes would help Hopkins’ team as well as Leola Robinson and Henry Crusaw, two elderly Black farmers who could not meet the state’s standards to show they had been registered to do business in Florida for five years before applying.