Yesterday in the middle of legislation, lawmakers wanted to sweeten the deal with orange growers in the citrus industry to help with expanding access to medical Marijuana throughout Florida.
The deal was that a database of patients who want to buy cannabis would be made; in exchange, the Department of Health will provide preferential treatment to companies who convert some of their own citrus factories into medical marijuana buildings to grow enough plants to support patients who purchase cannabis in Florida.
Job potential
The reason behind converting some of the citrus factories into medical marijuana growing sites is because the citrus industry was met with devastating greening among some of its citrus crops that dampened the growth of the citrus industry this previous harvesting season.
Lawmakers think that by turning some of the citrus factories into growing sites for medical marijuana mean that they do not have to establish a separate building and it’s easy to interchange some parts. They think that with the citrus industry in decline, people wouldn’t have to lose their jobs in citrus factories if they were converted and became a different factory for a different purpose.
The question that remains is whether or not who brought up the idea and who would benefit from the bill being passed. The answer lawmakers still do not know.
Language written in the bill suggest that maybe the citrus industry will benefit the most from it since they would be providing the shelter and a vast enough space to grow medical marijuana that could help with a little over 45,000 patients in an individual area.
Plus it would be cost effective to use some citrus factories as the distribution center because they have trucks and vehicles that could help deliver mass quantities of the plant throughout Florida.
Sweeteners
The clause in the bill says that facilities that can create a citrus concentrate or orange juice, and process citrus fruit or citrus molasses would be the key areas of interest in setting up a medical marijuana growing site.
The bill also states that two out of five competitive licenses will be awarded to these facilities to grow and sell pot.
Health officials are interested in the facilities listed in the clause and will be awarded special preference to helping medical marijuana be distributed throughout the state.
Popular brands that may have these types of facilities are companies like Tropicana and Coca-Cola here in Florida. Yet it is still unclear whether they have an interest in becoming part of the medical marijuana industry soon to hit Florida after July of this year.
