Medical marijuana smoking ban is challenged in court

TALLAHASSEE — A judge is deciding whether Floridians should be allowed to consume medical marijuana by smoking it.

Leon Circuit Judge Karen Gievers heard arguments Thursday on whether to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on smoking pot for medicinal purposes. The judge will issue a decision in the coming days, though there’s no set deadline to do so.

The medical marijuana constitutional amendment voters approved in 2016 allowed the Legislature to prohibit smoking in public areas. But the law passed in 2017 to carry out the amendment banned smoking entirely.

Medical marijuana patients must vape the product, or else use patches, oils or edibles.

John Morgan, the Orlando trial lawyer who largely financed the amendment drive, filed suit, which state attorneys are trying to have dismissed.

The state argues that the people who are plaintiffs in Morgan’s suit are not “qualified patients” under the law because they have not gone through the process to obtain medical marijuana in the state, and so they have no standing to sue.

But John Mills, arguing the case on behalf of the plaintiffs, pointed out that the plaintiffs need marijuana in its smoked form, so they can’t go through the legal means of obtaining medical marijuana, and that this is the very basis for the lawsuit.

“If you go to a doctor, they’re going to say no,” he said. “They’d be a criminal. You’d be a criminal. This is the controversy. The controversy is whether the statute denies access.”

Plaintiff Cathy Jordan of Manatee County was present in court Thursday with her husband, Bob. She has had ALS — also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — for 20 years, uses a wheelchair, and is unable to take oral forms of the medication. Her husband said smoking it keeps her lungs clear and without it, she would die.

“We’re proud to be a part of this,” Bob Jordan said. “We didn’t seek this, but we’re not going to take it sitting down either.”