Court: Scott-era law limiting medical-marijuana companies goes against will of the voters
an affront to former Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s rules that have cost the state years in court battles, an appellate court issued a ruling Tuesday that the current medical-marijuana regulatory system is unconstitutional and inconsistent with Amendment 2, the ballot proposal that legalized medical marijuana.
A 1st District Court of Appeal decision in Tallahassee called the current, vertically integrated system unconstitutional for the way it caps licenses and charges companies with essentially being one-man bands — they must grow, process, package, and sell medical marijuana without bringing in businesses to handle different parts of the process.
Critics say licensees might not have the technical or business skills to be effective in all areas, making it an inefficient model for a buring geoning industry.
Tampa-based Florigrown originally sued the Department of Health, which regulates medical marijuana under its Office of Medical Marijuana Use, after being denied approval of a license. The system currently caps the number of facilities — a statute the court called “unreasonable” in its ruling.
The three-judge panel’s ruling upheld in part a 2018 decision by Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson, who sided with Florigrown in a lawsuit alleging the law did not properly carry out the amendment.
Dodson issued a temporary injunction requiring state health officials to begin registering Florigrown and other medical-marijuana firms to do business, but the judge’s order was put on hold while the state appealed.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, Congressman Matt Gaetz, and state Sen. Jeff Brandes have called vertical integration a “cartel” that needed to be broken up in order to honor the will of the people. DurIn his early promise to drop Scott-era appeals and legalize smokeable medical marijuana, he said he also plans to drop appeals in other marijuana-related cases regarding limited licensing and vertical integration.
“This gives us a great opportunity to talk about breaking up the cartel,” Brandes said Tuesday. “Clearly vertical integration isn’t what’s best for the patients . ... It’s ripe for abuse.”
It is not clear if the state will appeal this ruling, or if the Legislature will rewrite the law.
Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican who wrote the bill to lift the smoking ban and was instrumental in the original 2017 law, pointed out that a limited licensing structure creates shortages in the market and inflated prices for people who want to treat their illnesses with the drug. The senator, who has been in close contact with DeSantis and his legal team, suggested the department open up the market completely or set up a lottery system in the same way that liquor licenses work.
Agriculture Commissioner Nicole “Nikki” Fried said Tuesday that the ruling is “a victory for openness and the future of medical marijuana.” She pointed out that when voters supported a ballot measure to access the medicine, they didn’t expect legislation that would be restrictive to an open market.
Fried, a former cannabis lobbyist and attorney who ran a campaign largely on a promise to expand access to medical marijuana, said the vertically integrated system “hinders smaller farms, people of color, and others from participating in this vital new economic opportunity.”
Taylor Biehl, a lobbyist for the Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida, said in an ideal world, companies could optionally decouple from the vertical integration model and the department could license other businesses to cultivate, process, test, or sell. Licensees should be the only entity to grow the marijuana, Biehl said.
In an interview with the News Service of Florida, Florigrown CEO Adam Elend called the ruling a “game-changer.”
A FLORIDA APPELLATE COURT RULED THAT A LAW REQUIRING MEDICAL MARIJUANA COMPANIES TO GROW, PROCESS, AND SELL THEIR PRODUCT WITH NO THIRD-PARTY INVOLVEMENT GOES AGAINST A 2016 STATE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
“It drops a bomb on the current licensing scheme.
It’s just changing the whole regime,” Elend said. “People are not getting medicine. The dispensaries are out of stock all the time. The products are limited, and the prices are high. That’s what happens in an oligopoly and that’s what we have.”
Samantha J. Gross: @samanthajgross