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FLORIDA A STEP CLOSER TO MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Barring Lawsuits, New Rule May Take Effect Late October.

TALLAHASSEE - State health officials Tuesday started the countdown clock on a proposed rule governing the production and sale of a medical marijuana strain approved earlier this year by the Florida Legislature.

The Health Department has worked most of the summer on the needed rule and made the latest changes following a final public hearing last Friday.  Barring a possible legal challenge, the rule could be ready to take effect by late October.

In the latest version, department officials attempted to clarify the terms of ownership for marijuana dispensaries and moved Martin County from a Central Florida dispensary region to the one containing Palm Beach County and the rest of Southeast Florida.

Under the measure signed into law by Gov.  Rick Scott, doctors in January will be authorized to recommend a liquid form of non-euphoric marijuana to cancer and epilepsy patients beginning in January.

"Today's publication of a changed rule demonstrates that our focus has been to get this product to the market as soon as possible with an emphasis on patient safety," said Florida Surgeon General John Armstrong.  "We want to avoid unnecessary delays.  We want to help children with refractory epilepsy and patients with advanced cancer as quickly and safely as possible."

Getting a rule in place may help opponents of a separate Florida medical marijuana measure - a proposed constitutional amendment on the Nov.  4 ballot that would allow conventional marijuana to treat a much wider range of illnesses and for conditions where its use "would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient."

Law enforcement organizations and business associations are among those fighting the ballot proposal, warning it kicks the door open to wholesale pot use.  The measure needs at least 60 percent voter approval to become law.

Opponents of the ballot measure Tuesday announced that seven former Florida Supreme Court justices have come out against the ballot measure authorizing widescale medical marijuana.

"The Legislature has already legalized a strain of low-THC marijuana for medical use that is not smoked," said former Justice Kenneth Bell.  "Any expansion of marijuana use should reflect further development in medical knowledge and have a carefully limited scope, which Amendment 2 does not do."

Despite a seemingly endless stream of alternate proposals being offered at public hearings on the proposed regulatory structure for the pot low in tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ), the compound that produces the marijuana high, state officials have said they are focused on finalizing the rule now on the table.

That goal had looked threatened by dozens of new concerns raised in a 19-page letter recently sent to the Health Department from a lawyer for a key legislative committee, with some questions going to the heart of determining who will be allowed to make medical marijuana available beginning in January at five growth and sales centers around the state.

The Legislature last spring said these centers would be run by nurseries in business at least 30 years with an inventory of at least 400,000 plants.  But the proposed rules said nurseries could contract with other companies and financial backers, as long as the grower owned 25 percent of the business.

After the legislative committee challenged the department's authority to create that standard, the retooled rule released Tuesday makes changes assuring that a "nurseryman ...  will serve as the operator" of the production and dispensary operation.