Pubdate: Mon, 12 Jan 2015
Source: News Herald (Panama City, FL)
Copyright: 2015 The News Herald
Contact:  http://www.newsherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1018

POT? NOT! FLORIDIANS STILL WAITING

By now, if everything had gone according to plan, cancer and epilepsy
patients in Florida would be able to receive a low-potency form of
marijuana to ease their symptoms.

State Rep. Matt Gaetz proposed this medical marijuana initiative and
pushed it through the Legislature last spring, and Gov. Rick Scott
signed it into law. It was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, eight days
ago.

But, as usual with the lumbering bureaucracy that is state government,
things didn't go as planned.

The implementation date came and went and Tallahassee paper-pushers
are still trying to establish a regulatory structure for growing and
dispensing doctor-approved pot. An administrative law judge stuck down
the health department's first try in November.

A recent report by the News Service of Florida sketched some of the
regulatory hurdles:

"To be eligible for one of five state licenses to grow, process and
distribute strains of non-euphoric marijuana, nurseries will likely
have to make significant investments in high-ticket items such as
analytical equipment, expert consultants, security operations and
procuring the $5 million performance bonds required in the law, Nelson
said."

Nelson is Patricia Nelson, director of the Office of Compassionate
Use, who believes additional legislation will be needed to get medical
marijuana dispensaries up and running.

Rep. Gaetz isn't so sure. "I don't think anyone's stonewalling," he
said the other day. "It's just not something that's really comparable
to the normal administrative rigmarole."

This newspaper supported Rep. Gaetz's marijuana initiative because it
was a bold move to offer a once-forbidden but doubtless effective
treatment to those who suffer debilitating illnesses. So we hope he's
right that more legislation won't be needed, and the state can work
out the kinks in this program.

The sooner, the better. Those in desperate need of medical marijuana
have waited long enough.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D