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BACKERS: STATE POT INDUSTRY WORTH BILLIONS

Proponents Cite Benefits to Many Ill Floridians, Thousands of Added Jobs, Millions in Tax Revenue.

Entrepreneurs in the budding cannabis industry are salivating at the prospect that Florida might legalize medical marijuana.

Pot proponents say hundreds of thousands of Floridians with cancer and other ailments would benefit from medical marijuana - and they see the potential for a billion-dollar industry that could create thousands of jobs and generate millions in tax revenue.

"I look at this as one of the big job savers, job creators, tax getters," said Orlando attorney John Morgan, who's bankrolling a November ballot initiative to legalize pot for medical use.  "Technology is taking jobs away every day.  This business here is going to replace jobs and income like never before."

Morgan spoke on Tuesday at the Marijuana Business Conference in Kissimmee, an event where vendors hawked a variety of products and services for growers and sellers of cannabis.  Farmers browsed a selection of fertilizers, humidity-control systems, lights and blackout curtains.

One exhibitor pitched crop insurance.  Others displayed pot packaging, labels, display cases and vaporizers.  Attendees could browse rival trade publications Marijuana Business Magazine and Cannabis Business Times.

While Morgan sees reefer as an antidote to offshoring of jobs, and cannabis boosters stress that humans have been smoking the low-tech plant for centuries, the new breed of "ganjapreneurs" doesn't shy away from technology.  One company at the trade show marketed "seed-to-sale software."

Another vendor, Denver-based Jane, displayed electronic kiosks where dispensaries - as pot shops are known - can collect cash from customers.  The machines mean dispensaries face less risk of employee theft, and require fewer workers.

"You all who are in this business, if you stay with it for the long haul, are going to make a small fortune," Morgan told hundreds of people attending the conference.

Medical marijuana industries already are up and running in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan and a dozen other states.  Nuances vary by state, but the details are generally the same.  Patients must get a doctor's permission to buy marijuana.

Weed must be grown within state borders, at indoor farms, typically in converted warehouses.  Banks and health insurers steer clear of a product that the federal government considers illegal, so customers pay cash, with no reimbursement.  Depending on the patient's preference, the pot can be smoked, eaten, vaporized or applied to the skin.

Florida would be the second-largest state to legalize weed, and pot proponents say the state's large population of seniors is ripe for relief from marijuana.

"This could end up being one of the largest medical marijuana markets in the country," said Chris Walsh, editorial director of Marijuana Business Daily, a publishing company that covers the cannabis industry and hosted the conference in Kissimmee.

First, though, proponents must persuade Florida voters to legalize the industry.  In 2014, a medical marijuana initiative was approved by 57.6 percent of Florida voters, short of the 60 percent required to amend the state constitution.  A poll released this week by Quinnipiac University found that 80 percent of Florida voters support legalizing pot for medical use, although a caveat is in order: A Quinnipiac poll months before the 2014 election showed 88 percent support for medical marijuana.

Just how big Florida's ganja business gets depends on how many Floridians decide to treat their ailments with weed, and how much cannabis they consume.  Morgan places the market at 400,000 to 500,000 Floridians with such diseases as cancer, epilepsy, AIDS, Parkinson's disease, Crohn's disease and muscular dystrophy.

Medical marijuana consumption varies by state.

In Colorado, nearly 2.2 percent of the population uses weed to treat health conditions, according to a report by the Florida Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research.  If Floridians prove that they're as keen on cannabis as Coloradans, more than 440,000 patients would sign up to buy legalized pot.

In California and Washington, just 1.5 percent of residents use medical pot.  Apply that rate to Florida, and 300,000 patients would buy medical marijuana.

The Office of Economic and Demographic Research issued a wide range of estimates for potential sales of legalized pot, from as little as $197 million a year to as much as $3.3 billion.

The low estimate is based on 250,000 Floridians signing up for the state's medical marijuana program, then using 3.5 ounces a year at a price of $225 per ounce.  That works out to an annual weed budget of $788 per person.

The high estimate assumes the same number of patients consume 30 ounces a year at a price of $450 an ounce - a pace that seems unlikely, considering that users would have to come up with $13,500 a year.

Assuming medical marijuana is subjected to a 6 percent sales tax, state revenue would range from $12 million to $357 million a year, the Office of Economic and Demographic Research said.

Colorado, which has a broad legalization policy that allows anyone over 21 to buy marijuana, collected $111.9 million in marijuana taxes and fees in the first nine months of the 2015-16 fiscal year, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue.

"There's a lot of unknowns at this point," Walsh said.  "But we are very bullish on the Florida market.  This could be an industry that generates hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and tens of millions in revenue to state coffers."