Medical marijuana bill

House panel adds restrictions.

TALLAHASSEE — A plan to implement the state’s medical marijuana constitutional amendment is on its way to the Florida House floor for a vote.

The bill, criticized as too restrictive by medical marijuana activists, became even more restrictive in its last committee stop on Monday.

Legislators, voting 14-4, kept a limited number of grower/dispensers and a ban on smoking, vaping and edibles. The proposal also:

Bans telemedicine, so doctors must make an inperson diagnosis before recommending marijuana.

Bans pregnant women from using medical marijuana.

Requires doctors to check the state’s prescription drug monitoring program before recommending a patient use medical marijuana.

Allows dispensaries to be closer to schools than the 500-foot limit in the bill if cities approve, but no closer than bars are allowed to be.

Allows researchers to use patients’ health data for research without patients’ express permission, though patient names would first be removed.

Requires delivery devices to be bought at state-licensed dispensaries.

Adds requirements for a state advertising campaign against illicit use of marijuana.

The bill “effectively negates the votes of more than 6 million Floridians,” said Ben Pollara, who ran the medical marijuana amendment campaign.

The four Democrats on the committee who voted no repeated many activists’ concerns.

“The fact that there’s no smoking of the product, there’s no edibles, there’s no vaporizing, I think when people passed medical marijuana they believed that would be the delivery,” said state Rep. Lori Berman, DLantana. She cited the new telemedicine ban as “yet another burden,” as truly sick, bedridden patients could have teleconferenced to a doctor.

Negotiations between the House and the Senate are ongoing, and an agreed-upon bill between both chambers is still possible.

“The goal was to have a reconciliation between the House medical marijuana implementing bill and the Senate medical marijuana implementing bill and present it at this committee,” said the House bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Ray Rodrigues, REstero.

The Senate appropriations committee takes up its version of a medical marijuana bill on Tuesday morning. That bill allows vaping and edibles and would result in more licenses for growers but limits how many dispensaries each grower can have.

“I’ve had productive discussions with the Senate and I believe we’re going to have a final product that addresses many of the concerns heard here today,” Rodrigues said.