Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill on medical marijuana yesterday with about 38 other bills on his desk. The cannabis bill in Florida will provide a broader system of medical marijuana throughout the state. The law was passed yesterday under a special session, SB 8A, when legislation failed to implement the bills in May. Patients under the bill are those who have cancer, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, epilepsy, and glaucoma, to name a few.
SB 8A
The bill will provide ten new licenses for growers and dispensers -- added to the original seven -- by October of this year.
The bill says that patients can use drops, pills, oils, and vaporized forms of cannabis under a doctor’s prescription. Smoking is still banned. In a press statement Scott said earlier this month that he is glad that the Senate and House were able to come together on terms for the bill.
Challenges to follow
So far the bill has one lawsuit by Joe Redner, a strip club owner in Tampa who wants to obtain his own medical marijuana license to grow the plants for himself. His lawsuit claims that he is unsure of what dispensers and growers could be putting in these prescription forms of cannabis and that he wants clarification over whether they are using the whole plant so that he can make a cannabis juice drink for himself.
Redner is a 77-year old terminal lung cancer patient that has battled brain cancer in the past. He applied for a medical marijuana card this year.
John Morgan is also likely to file a lawsuit against the smoking ban on medical marijuana. Previously he was seen with Trump’s strategist Roger Stone, who is close to the Trump administration, and has acted as something of a medical marijuana ambassador -- with the hope that it would be decriminalized under President Trump.
“It’s a no brainer that Gov. Rick Scott wants to run for U.S. Senate,” John Morgan said after hearing that Scott signed the bill into law. He told Tampa Bay Times that Scott probably would have missed the mark on his U.S. Senate campaign had he not gotten this bill on his resume for the job, “If he didn’t sign this bill, he couldn’t run for dog catcher.”
Other bills
Scott also approved HB 441 which gives court clerks added protection for public record cases.
The bill does not specify if clerks can be sued for handing out public information that is supposed to be protected from public disclosure if the information is not classified as confidential by lawyers.
HB 689 will now let anyone with a beer or wine license sell sake. Sake is fermented rice that is often bought in liquor stores, and this may help with coverage in terms of licenses for alcohol.
