In a resignation letter to Florida\u2019s Department of Health, dated July 27, Christian Bax, the embattled director of the state\u2019s medical marijuana program, said he \u201cwill be leaving no later than August 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bax had been the target of growing criticism by both patients and what media accounts call the \u201cganjapreneurs\u201d seeking a foothold in the state\u2019s tightly restricted medical marijuana market. Filling Bax\u2019s shoes will be his deputy director, Courtney Coppola, who has worked for what is now called the state\u00a0Office of Medical Marijuana Use<\/a>\u00a0(OMMU) since just after Bax began his tenure in 2015.<\/p>\n Exemplifying the discontent, John Morgan, a key figure behind the 2016 Amendment 2 initiative that launched the medical marijuana program,\u00a0was quoted by the\u00a0Orlando Weekly<\/a>\u00a0saying of Bax: \u201cHe was so inept that it had to be intentional. Anyone would be better and more capable.\u201d<\/p>\n Karen Goldstein, the executive director of\u00a0NORML of Florida<\/a>, told Cannabis Now that the state has seen \u201cbureaucratic chaos\u201d under Bax\u2019s leadership. Bax\u2019s office (which has gone through a few name changes) was actually created in 2015, after the Florida legislature passed a \u201cCBD-specific\u201d law allowing the use of low-THC medical marijuana products. Goldstein said the law was \u201ccreated to confuse the voters,\u201d and derail pressure for a more expansive program. If so, it didn\u2019t work, as\u00a0Amendment 2<\/a>\u00a0was passed by more than 70 percent the following year. As Goldstein proudly notes, that\u2019s a better margin than Gov. Rick Scott got \u2014 either when he was elected in 2010 or re-elected in 2014.<\/p>\n Bax, an attorney by trade, \u201chad no medical knowledge or experience with marijuana\u201d when he was appointed as head of the new office, Goldstein charges.<\/p>\n But Goldstein sees his appointment has a symptom of a wider official bottlenecking of the program. Licensing for growers has not kept pace with the protocols established by the enabling legislation for Amendment 2 \u2014 which was itself passed by the state house\u00a0amid activist protest<\/a>\u00a0in 2017. The \u201cvertical system\u201d created by that law inherently favors big businesses, in Goldstein\u2019s view. The grower is also to be processor and dispenser, and each such entity can have up to 25 dispensaries. These entities are known as\u00a0Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers<\/a>\u00a0(MMTCs), and there are now 14 of them \u2014 the largest being\u00a0Trulieve<\/a>.<\/p>\n The announcement of Bax\u2019s resignation comes days after the Health Department granted an MMTC license to the previously denied Nature\u2019s Way Nursery of Miami,\u00a0following an opinion<\/a>\u00a0by an administrative law judge that the method the OMMU was using to screen applicants was flawed.<\/p>\n Under Health Department mandate in response to the opinion, one of the new licenses must also go to an African American farmer who was part of the Pigford class action suit, in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture was accused of discrimination against black farmers. The Pigford case\u00a0ended in a settlement<\/a>\u00a0in 2010. Florida created a \u201cPigford class<\/a>\u201d of MMTC license following protests by the\u00a0Florida Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association<\/a>, which was one of the litigants in the Pigford case.<\/p>\n There are also what Goldstein characterizes as onerous restrictions on patients \u2014 including the mandate that they must have a three-month relationship with a doctor to even apply for a card.<\/p>\n \u201cNo such restriction exists for anyone seeking harmful opioids or any other pharmaceutical drug,\u201d Goldstein points out. \u201cAnd then it was taking months even after you apply \u2014 three, four, five months. People were calling me asking for help, saying, \u2018I can\u2019t get my medicine, I don\u2019t know what to do.’\u201d<\/p>\n Also, just before Bax\u2019s announcement, the state house approved $13.3 million in funding for the OMMU, after lawmakers had threatened to hold up the funds in response to the delays, as the\u00a0Tampa Bay Times<\/a>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n Goldstein states flatly that the OMMU under Bax \u201cwas obstructing the implementation of the program.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cFor instance, there are still no rules for edibles, despite edibles being specifically mentioned in Senate Bill 8A, the implementing law for the 2016 initiative,\u201d Goldstein says.<\/p>\n Then there is the\u00a0controversy about patient access to actual smokable herbaceous cannabis<\/a>. Under current regulations, you can only buy \u201cwhole-flower\u201d cannabis pre-packed in devices designed for vaping. Goldstein says this is violating the will of Florida voters. \u201cAmendment 2 says you can\u2019t smoke in public, which implies that you\u00a0can\u00a0smoke in private.\u201d<\/p>\n Among those\u00a0fighting in the state courts<\/a>\u00a0for the right to herbaceous cannabis and home cultivation is Joe Redner, a Tampa cancer patient who credits his survival to juicing fresh cannabis leaves.<\/p>\n \u201cThe state is obstructing the medical marijuana program any way they possibly can,\u201d Goldstein sums up. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that Christian Bax leaving the office will be a step in the right direction. But time will tell.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldstein is also the vice chair of\u00a0Regulate Florida<\/a>, which is working to get a legalization initiative on the ballot for 2020 \u2014 under the slogan \u201cRegulate Cannabis Like Alcohol.\u201d To do that, they need to get nearly 8000,000 signatures, with some from each electoral district in the state, in just two years.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we passed medical marijuana, we had four years [to get the signatures], but Rick Scott changed it to two years,\u201d Goldstein notes.<\/p>\n She sees a general legalization as assisting medical patients. Under her proposal, adults in a single household would be able to grow six mature plants.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a particular strain is helpful but not available in dispensaries, they\u2019ll be able to grow it at home,\u201d Goldstein says. \u201cAnd a lot of people don\u2019t want to be in a registry, they don\u2019t want a public record that they are users.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the \u201cregulated adult use\u201d proposal, anyone with proof of age could legally buy at retail outlets. Goldstein believes it would also undercut the black market and cut down on underage access.<\/p>\n She points to the\u00a0massive algae bloom<\/a>\u00a0now\u00a0choking the life out of Lake Okeechobee<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 mostly due to fertilizer runoff from sugar-cane agriculture \u2014 as one of many problems that a taxed cannabis sector could help address. \u201cTax revenue from a legal marijuana industry could help clean up that lake,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you have access to medical cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Florida\u2019s Medical Marijuana Chief Steps Down Amid Controversy<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In a resignation letter to Florida\u2019s Department of Health, dated July 27, Christian Bax, the embattled director of the state\u2019s medical marijuana program, said he \u201cwill be leaving no later than August 10.\u201d Bax had been the target of growing criticism by both patients and what media accounts call theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3963,50,136,5113,388,5199,4317,53,139,4318,5200,146,420,5201],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28300,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299\/revisions\/28300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bureaucratic Bottlenecking<\/h4>\n
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The Next Step: Legalization<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Florida\u2019s Medical Marijuana Chief Steps Down Amid Controversy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"