Medical marijuana ban close to repeal

TALLAHASSEE — With plenty of breathing room before a March 15 deadline set by Gov. Ron DeSantis, House and Senate leaders are close to doing away with a state ban on smoking medical marijuana.

State Sen. Jeff Brandes and state Rep. Ray Rodrigues confirmed Wednesday they’ve reached an accord on a proposal that would allow patients to purchase up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana for smoking every 35 days, ban smoking of medical marijuana in public places and allow terminally ill children to smoke the treatment, but only if they have a second opinion from a pediatrician.

After taking office in January, DeSantis gave the Legislature until March 15 to eliminate the smoking ban. If lawmakers don’t act, DeSantis has threatened to drop the state’s appeal of a court decision that found the prohibition ran afoul of a

voter-approved constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana.

Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, filed an amendment late Tuesday that’s a blueprint for the repeal of the smoking prohibition. He predicted the full Senate could amend its smoking-ban legislation and take a floor vote as early as Thursday.

House Speaker José Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, had balked at doing away with the smoking ban, which was included in a 2017 law aimed at carrying out the 2016 constitutional amendment.

But after DeSantis delivered the ultimatum, the House made a series of concessions to reach a compromise with the Senate, which historically has taken a lessrestrictive approach toward medical marijuana.

For example, the House version would have restricted medical marijuana dispensaries to selling prerolled cannabis cigarettes, along with other cannabisbased products not used for smoking.

Under the revised plan, dispensaries could sell any form of smokable marijuana, and patients could buy devices to smoke cannabis at state-licensed medical marijuana treatment centers or other retail outlets, such as head shops.

The Senate, meanwhile, yielded to the House by agreeing to limits on how much smokable cannabis patients could purchase at one time, as well as a cap on the total amount patients could have.

“The House’s concern is that we believe the people voted for medical marijuana. We do not believe the people voted for recreational marijuana, and if there’s no limit, then the concern is there could be an excess amount of product that’s out there. We believe that would be diverted for recreational purposes,” said Rodrigues, who has long been a House leader on medicalmarijuana issues.

“Of course there’s going to be some on both sides that are not happy. But we spent days working on these issues,” Brandes told the News Service.

Brandes estimated that the 2.5-ounce limit per order will meet the needs of the vast majority of patients.

“But there are going to be outliers, and we’ve created exceptions for those outliers,” he said.

Brandes said he hasn’t spoken with DeSantis about the revised bill. But the governor’s office has received “every major revision” to the medical marijuana proposals and that most of his “major issues” have been addressed, Brandes said.

SUN SENTINEL