The Florida Division of Well being introduced final week that it’s going to open a brand new spherical of licensing for medical marijuana companies that can double the variety of vertically built-in hashish operators within the state. In an emergency rule launched on Friday, the well being division revealed that 22 new medical marijuana enterprise licenses shall be accessible, a transfer that will double the 22 operators at the moment licensed to provide and promote medical marijuana in Florida.
The brand new emergency rule comes greater than six years after Florida voters legalized the medicinal use of hashish with the passage of a constitutional modification poll measure in 2016. The next 12 months, state lawmakers handed laws to control the state’s medical marijuana trade, with provisions to subject further hashish enterprise licenses because the variety of registered sufferers grew.
With the variety of registered medical marijuana sufferers now standing at almost 790,000, according to data launched final week, state regulators ought to have issued almost two dozen medical marijuana enterprise licenses to maintain up with this system’s progress. However till final week, the Division of Well being had didn’t take motion on issuing further medical marijuana enterprise licenses because the administration of Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis took management of the state’s government department in 2019.
“That is an thrilling milestone for Florida’s medical hashish program, greater than 5 years within the making,” Courtney Coppola, a former director of the state’s Workplace of Medical Marijuana Use, told The News Service of Florida. “These further licenses are an necessary step in transferring this system ahead for Florida’s sufferers and future licensees.”
Florida Functions To Be Accepted In April
In December, hashish regulators on the state well being division introduced that it had developed a course of to use for brand new medical marijuana enterprise licenses, with plans to just accept functions in “batching cycles,” based on media experiences. Underneath the emergency rule revealed on Friday, the division will settle for functions for 22 further licenses between April 24 and April 28. Louise St. Laurent, a former basic counsel for the state Division of Well being, stated that the state’s medical marijuana operators “are thrilled” by final week’s announcement from regulators.
“There’s been no scarcity of firms ready and watching the division for these guidelines since in all probability no less than 2017 to have the ability to have a chance to have the ability to compete for these licenses,” St. Laurent stated on Friday.
Florida’s current medical marijuana operators have been licensed below a 2014 legislation that legalized “non-euphoric” types of hashish for a restricted variety of sufferers. The brand new licensing spherical introduced on Friday would be the first batch of recent licenses issued because the measure to control the state’s medical hashish trade was handed in 2017.
The 2017 laws additionally required the Division of Well being to subject a license to a Black farmer with enterprise ties in Florida. In September, regulators introduced that the license can be awarded to a person in Suwannee County, however authorized challenges have pressured the well being division to delay issuing the license to the profitable applicant.
Leisure Weed Initiative Deliberate For 2024
Though Florida has to date solely legalized medical marijuana, a constitutional modification marketing campaign to legalize hashish to be used by adults is at the moment underway, with plans for the proposal to look on the poll for the 2024 election. Final week, organizers for the constitutional modification marketing campaign, which is essentially funded by Florida’s largest medical marijuana Trulieve, submitted sufficient signatures from voters backing the measure to require the Florida Supreme Courtroom to evaluation the proposal.
Underneath state legislation, the Supreme Courtroom should approve initiatives earlier than they are often positioned on the poll. In 2021, Florida’s highest court docket used that energy to strike down two separate proposals to legalize leisure marijuana, denying the state’s voters the chance to weigh in on the initiatives. However Jade Inexperienced, the president of hashish trade consulting agency Subsequent Titan Capital, believes that the destiny of the 2021 proposals just isn’t more likely to impede assist for this 12 months’s try to legalize adult-use hashish.
“Florida is certainly a market of curiosity, particularly in comparison with a few of the different extra mature, extra saturated markets,” stated Inexperienced. “The primary purpose is, all people has an analogous perception that, no matter occurs in 2024, finally adult-use (leisure) hashish will come to Florida.”
Florida’s current medical marijuana trade is estimated to generate about $1 billion in annual gross sales for the state’s operators. Including authorized leisure marijuana would open the market to all adults within the state, providing firms an added incentive to enter Florida’s medical marijuana trade.
“If you may make it in Florida till rec (leisure marijuana) hits, then you’ll have a major benefit in what shall be one of many largest hashish economies not simply within the U.S. however on the earth,” Inexperienced stated.