Pubdate: Thu, 29 Dec 2016
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2016 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Note: Rarely prints out-of-state LTEs.

MONTHS OF WAITING AND LEGISLATIVE WRANGLING AHEAD FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Would-be medical marijuana entrepreneurs face months of waiting and an
unknown number of rules and regulations

With the passage of the medical marijuana amendment, would-be pot-shop
proprietors looking to get in on the ground floor of Florida's Green Rush
are in for months of waiting and an uncertain regulatory future.

Amendment 2, passed with 71 percent of the vote, will broaden the number
of patients who qualify for full-strength medical marijuana to include
sufferers of HIV/AIDS, cancer, PTSD, ALS and a number of other ailments.

"Amendment 2's passage was important, but it's the first step of a
three-step process," said Richard Blau, the head of the Florida-wide law
firm GrayRobinson's Regulated Products Practice Group. "[The amendment]
doesn't have the detail to cover the wide variety of issues and variables
that have to be defined before you have a working structure for a
marijuana industry. The next step is the legislative step. Medical
marijuana is going to be one of the major issues they discuss and debate."

In its March session, the state Legislature will first have to decide how
much of the regulatory scheme to leave up to the health department. But it
could offer rules governing dispensaries, caregivers, physicians, taxation
and defining how patients who suffer from a debilitation of "the same kind
or class" as those listed can also qualify for medical marijuana.

It could also set guidelines for doctors who recommend marijuana to their
patients, such as a number of hours of mandatory training. The amendment
itself allows doctors to recommend medical marijuana to qualifying
patients after having given them "a physical examination and a full
assessment of the medical history of the patient."

The third step will be the Florida Department of Health's creation of
rules and regulations to implement the amendment and the laws passed by
the Legislature. The constitutional amendment gives the department until
July to finalize rules on how the new medical marijuana industry will
work. The Florida Department of Health did not respond to an interview
request.

Cities and counties also will have to pass local laws governing where and
when dispensaries can operate.

It all begins with the Legislature, and what they intend to do is still
uncertain.

Under a 2014 state law, Floridians with epilepsy, cancer or severe muscle
spasms are allowed to have marijuana in a non-smokeable form, but it had
to be low in THC, the chemical in the plant that produces a high. The law
also limited production of the plant to just five nurseries statewide.

After much red tape and lawsuits, six nurseries are now allowed to produce
marijuana, and they're responsible not only for growing the weed, but also
processing it and dispensing it.

In 2015, the Legislature expanded the law to allow the terminally ill --
those with less than a year to live, according to their doctors -- to use
full-strength marijuana.

State Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation, who sponsored the 2014 law, said
it should be the model going forward.

"I think that people need to understand that the system is vertically
integrated, so you need to look at the existing framework for cultivation,
processing and dispensing," Edwards wrote in an email.

But limiting new marijuana businesses to those that can grow, process and
dispense marijuana "would be in conflict with the letter, spirit and
intent of the authors of the law," said Ben Pollara, the campaign manager
of the organization behind Amendment 2 and one of the amendment's authors.

"I believe as one of the authors of the amendment that a requirement of
vertical integration would be unconstitutional," Pollara said.

But he added that he expected medical marijuana legislation to pass
through both chambers "without a whole lot of fanfare or bloodletting."

"The Legislature has indicated that both houses are implementing
legislation," Pollara said. "It's not yet clear what that looks like, but
the message I've gotten from both sides of the Capitol is that it includes
some expansion of the marketplace" beyond the original six nurseries that
qualified under the 2014 law.

Expanding the number of dispensaries is only the beginning for the issues
the legislature will have to tackle in creating the industry. Taxation
could be a big point, Blau said.

"Everybody agrees with this notion that there should be taxation, but
nobody has defined what or how that will happen," Blau said. "Is it an ad
valorem tax? Is it by weight? Is there a sales tax? I'm sure there will
be, but will it be a local and state sales tax? And when you decide what
tax regime you use, what rate will you use?"

Once the new industry's structure is set up, would-be pot-shop owners will
have practical concerns before they get started.

"The application process is different in every state, but it's always
going to be extremely competitive and very detail heavy," said Taylor
West, the deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association in
Denver, a trade association that represents more than a thousand
marijuana-industry businesses in both medical and recreational marijuana
states.

Applications have almost invariably taken longer than estimated, West
said. Illinois, which passed a medical marijuana law in 2013, is "just
starting to see patient counts getting up to a level where there's some
consistency and solidity to the program," she said.

Would-be dispensary owners in Florida won't be able to get a look at that
application process until after the health department creates its rules in
July. Profitability could be years away from that point, West said.
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