Florida medical marijuana seems hopelessly mired in bureaucratic gridlock. Monday morning in Tallahassee, legislators on an oversight committee vented their frustration with the Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use and Christian Bax, the man appointed to run it.
“How this really plays out,” explains Sen. Kevin J. Rader, chairman of the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee, “is that all the entities that have been created that are growing, distributing, and selling medical marijuana – they’re scratching their heads because they’re unsure of what they need to do.”
For Rader, this legislative logjam isn’t just political. The senator’s own mother is paralyzed from the waist down and medical marijuana has been a huge help in treating her condition. But she doesn’t live in Florida. She primarily resides in Israel, in large part because she can readily receive the treatment she needs there. “In a way, it’s very personal to me,” says Rader, “because I see firsthand the benefit.”
As of now, the issue of state regulation remains in limbo. That means many of the patients whose doctors have prescribed this form of treatment to alleviate some of their suffering, patients with cancer and HIV, with multiple sclerosis and PTSD, might not be able to get the medicine they need. There are currently more than 74,000 patients listed on Florida’s Medical Marijuana Use Registry.
According to Senator Rader, many dispensaries and growers have begun self-regulating. “I don’t know in any industry we want medicine to be self-regulated,” notes Rader.
The committee has been trying to get Bax’s office to work on the rules for the past four months. It sent more than a dozen ten- to 15-page letters starting on October 3, 2017, asking about the emergency rules that would be put in place and getting no response from the Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
“I am enormously disappointed in the conduct of this department,” says Senator Rader. “This is a serious issue across the state. The voters in the state of Florida voted I believe it was 72 percent. I believe every House and Senate district, 120 in the House, all 40 in the Senate, voted overwhelmingly for this amendment, for medical marijuana use. And we have a division of the executive branch that is ignoring the statutes that we put forth and amendment that was voted on.”
As a response to the department ignoring Rader’s committee, the House has added an amendment to its annual budget to potentially defund the Office of Medical Marijuana Use. Says Rader: “They’ve ignored 15 letters, so [the House] is like, ‘Obviously you don’t want to work with us; let’s defund you.'”
Bax’s office seems to be successfully running out the clock on the issue. The legislative session ends March 9 and after that, there isn’t much Rader and his fellow committee members can do. And unless the threat of the House’s budgetary amendment and the committee’s objections motivate the Office of Medical Marijuana Use to action, it’s not clear whether anything can be done after the session ends.
“At the end of the day,” says Rader, “this is to try to help hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Floridians get access to medical marijuana for their pain and their medical conditions.”
