Caption Davie imposes temporary moratorium on medical marijuana centers

Florida health officials have started the rules-making process that will expand those eligible to receive medical marijuana.

The Department of Health on Tuesday published the proposed rules and announced that public hearings will be held in five cities Feb. 6-9.

Patients with one of 10 medical conditions will be able to receive medical marijuana but it does not allow for more distributing organizations. There are currently seven licensed, with one more case under an administrative challenge.

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Dr. [name redacted], 50, of Parkland, was arrested Wednesday on prescription drug allegations at his Wilton Manors practice, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. (Sun Sentinel / Drug Enforcement Administration Handout)

A Broward doctor and his medical assistant were arrested on prescription drug charges Wednesday, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Dr. [name redacted], 50, of Parkland, was arrested after a six-month investigation that showed he illegally supplied methamphetamine to some of his patients at his Wilton Manors practice, authorities said. He is also accused of dispensing medically unnecessary prescriptions to use with the methamphetamine "to further enhance the patient's altered state of mind," agents wrote.

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TALLAHASSEE -- Even as the state prepares to carry out a constitutional amendment authorizing medical marijuana, a lack of guidance from health officials could create a "very murky and dangerous legal area" for patients and doctors.

Authors of the amendment, industry insiders and legislative leaders have called on the Department of Health to clarify what doctors and dispensing organizations can legally do under existing state laws and the voter-approved amendment that went into effect Tuesday.

To date, the health agency has remained mum, referring only to the language of the constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters in November and to state laws approved in 2014 and 2016.

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Officials were expecting the measure to go before the County Commission in February or March. But several things have changed since the county's Public Safety Coordinating Council passed a version of the bill in August, and officials from at least two of the county's cities are opposed to opting in should the county pass an ordinance. Matt Bruce @Matt_BruceDBNJ

It's been about five months since Flagler County leaders last discussed the prospect of a proposed countywide adult civil citation ordinance that could give law enforcement the discretion to cite rather than arrest people caught with small amounts of marijuana.

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[photo] Oxycodone pain pills.

It took a lot of convincing for John Evard to go to rehab. Seven days into his stay at the Las Vegas Recovery Center, the nausea and aching muscles of opioid withdrawal were finally beginning to fade.

"Any sweats?" a nurse asked him as she adjusted his blood pressure cuff. "Last night it was really bad, but not since I got up," replied Evard, 70, explaining that he'd awakened several times with his sheets drenched.

Even for him, it was hard to understand how he ended up 300 miles away from his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., at this bucolic facility in the suburbs of Vegas. "This is the absolute first time I ever had anything close to addiction," he said. He prefers to use the term "complex dependence" to describe his situation: "It was, shall we say, a big surprise when it happened to me."

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Dr. Joseph Dorn has had a unique vantage point when it comes to the burgeoning medical marijuana industry in Florida.

Dorn was the medical director of Surterra Therapeutics, which is one of the six dispensing organizations licensed to grow and distribute medical cannabis in the state. He resigned from that position two months ago and has opened a medical marijuana treatment center as Amendment 2 takes effect on Tuesday.

The constitutional amendment, which was approved by 71 percent of Florida voters, allows higher-strength marijuana to be used for a wider list of medical ailments. However, the true measure of what the amendment means won't be immediately seen until a new set of rules are adopted and implemented by the Florida Legislature and the Department of Health.

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Kudos for pot vote

Mayor Buddy Dyer and the city of Orlando recently passed, 4-3, the initial vote to deprioritize arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana. I'm thankful for Dyer and Commissioners Regina Hill, Patty Sheehan and Robert Stuart for their support of the ordinance. I, unfortunately, left the City Council meeting feeling disappointed in Commissioner Samuel Ings for voting against it.

We live in a society where young black men and boys have been a target of the war on drugs. Ings argues that this policy would tarnish the image of Orlando as a family vacation destination.

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Would-be medical marijuana entrepreneurs face months of waiting and an unknown number of rules and regulations

With the passage of the medical marijuana amendment, would-be pot-shop proprietors looking to get in on the ground floor of Florida's Green Rush are in for months of waiting and an uncertain regulatory future.

Amendment 2, passed with 71 percent of the vote, will broaden the number of patients who qualify for full-strength medical marijuana to include sufferers of HIV/AIDS, cancer, PTSD, ALS and a number of other ailments.

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It can be bought online and shipped to your doorstep, like shoes from Zappos or a mystery novel from Amazon. It's cheap, just $40 for a gram. Nicknames: pink, U4. Potency: eight times more powerful than morphine. Death toll: at least 50 and counting.

Two recent casualties should be incentive enough to clamp down on the drug's availability and the people who profit from it. Best friends Grant Seaver and Ryan Ainsworth from Park City, Utah, got their hands on the drug, formally named U-47700, through a teenage friend who bought it online from a company in Shanghai. Both Seaver and Ainsworth were 13. Grant's parents found him dead from an overdose of pink Sept. 11. Two days later, Ryan's father found his son dead on the couch.

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The last time Floridians faced the subject of medical marijuana on the ballot, the measure just barely failed to garner enough support needed to become law.

This time appears to be different. There's still resistance, but the large wave of criticism from various groups like the Florida Sheriff's Association is gone. Polls indicate the ballot measure again named Amendment 2 appears to be coasting toward passage.

The most recent survey released by the University of North Florida indicates 73 percent of voters approve of the amendment, significantly more than the 60 percent needed for it to become law. Backers of the Amendment say stripping away the so-called loopholes and timing is key.

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The only sure way to know if the dire warnings against Amendment 2 (medical marijuana) will happen is to vote it in and find out.

Fortunately for Florida, other states have already done that. The four states where marijuana is fully legal began with medical marijuana about 15 years before. Those years of experience told voters that the dire predictions were wrong.

Amendment 2 is tightly written, with many safeguards, including room for the Legislature to act. Floridians are beneficiaries of the 'laboratory of the states.' If Amendment 2 passes and does not live up to its hoped-for benefits, Floridians will surely reject full legalization.

John G. Chase, Palm Harbor

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Brightly lit and bustling, Harborside Health Center serves as something of a model for the medical marijuana industry - even as California's freewheeling approach to cannabis is seen as an example of how not to do things.

As dozens of customers at Harborside pick their products, chatty budtenders talk knowledgeably about the selection, which includes cannabis for smoking, eating and vaporizing.

Business is booming: Between this store in Oakland and another location in San Jose, Harborside's sales total $35 million a year. Sales are so strong that Harborside offers free yoga, tai chi and acupuncture to its customers, who must have a doctor's permission to enter the store.

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A Mother Risks Prison and Splits Up Her Family in a Desperate Attempt to Rid Her Son of Cancer.

The Rockies unfurled outside Kristen Yeckley's passenger window, but she kept her eyes on the speedometer. No more than 5 mph over the limit, she urged her mother. Hands at 10 and 2. She had stayed up past 3 a.m., sobbing, praying, plotting the route back to Pinellas Park. The drive meant committing a federal crime with her 5-year-old son in the backseat. Kristen kept imagining handcuffs, the fear on Tyler's trusting face. If they were pulled over, she would use his medical records to plead for sympathy. She and her husband, Joe, had saved up for their dream home with a backyard pool. They had comfortable jobs, poker nights, a college fund in their son's name. Then came Tyler's diagnosis. When doctors said he was out of options, Kristen and Joe vowed to do anything, even split up their family, to give Tyler a chance with a treatment Florida doesn't allow. That brought Kristen to the sloping road out of Colorado last summer, 2,000 miles from home - with vials of liquid medical marijuana buried in her mother's suitcase. Worry first tugged at Kristen in the line to see Santa Claus.

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In 2009, when Ricky Williams studied as a masseuse and gaveme a Japanese shiatsu massage, the subject of marijuana came up-this is where conversations could go during deep-tissue revitalization with Ricky- and he said something ahead of its time. "Why does the NFL even care about catching players smoking pot?" he said. "How does that benefit anyone?"

Have we advanced enough to ask this in 2016?

Ricky's affinity for the herb led to suspensions, contributed to failed Dolphins seasons and has moved him to being a life-after-football spokesman for pot's benefits.

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Re Mark Wilson's July 28 letter, "Florida does not need 2,000 'pot shops' ": It seems that the only devastating effects should Amendment 2, legalizing medical marijuana, will be that hundreds of thousands of suffering Floridians will get relief from cheap natural plants that won't cost $50 a pill and come with a list of hazardous side effects a mile long.

I'm sure the Florida Chamber of Commerce's mission of promoting good private-sector jobs supports the sale of tobacco, which kills half a million Americans annually just as sure as the sun rises and sets. How's that for devastating?

And I'm guessing the chamber's position is with the frackers in adding more carcinogens to our drinking water because it creates jobs. Forget people's health and safety. Millions will suffer illness, and many will get cancer.

Art Levy, Key Biscayne

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Dispensaries Say Local Officials Wary of New Business.

As pot shops start to sprout in Florida, cities are struggling with how - or whether - to regulate the state's new marijuana industry.

This week, the state's first medical-marijuana dispensary, operated by Trulieve, opened its doors to customers in Tallahassee. Health officials Wednesday gave the go-ahead to a second group, Surterra, to start distributing its cannabis products. Both marijuana operators have permission to deliver products statewide, and Surterra plans to open a dispensary next month in Tampa.

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Far be it for me to disagree with the Capital Curmudgeon, but I must take issue that Florida will not be California when it comes to medical marijuana. Of course not - Florida was merely the pill mill capital of the nation with criminal medical professionals complicit in the schemes.

With medical marijuana, Florida will be much worse! I foresee many more than the 2,000 pot shops predicted by the Florida Department of Health should this amendment pass.

Even if Florida only becomes like Colorado (that has seen youth use of pot skyrocket since their laws passed), our youth gain tremendous access to potent cannabis - not that weak version from the '60s.

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TALLAHASSEE - Marijuana was sold legally in Florida for the first time this week since it was outlawed by the federal government in 1937.

In a staid Tallahassee storefront more akin to a doctor's office than a head shop, Dallas Nagy, a Tampa-area native with chronic seizures and muscle spasms, plunked down $60 for a non-euphoric strain of marijuana Tuesday.

"I thank you for the hope of getting better," Nagy said at the opening of Trulieve, the first medical marijuana dispensary in the state.

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The answer to sustaining Social Security and possibly paying down the national debt is very simple. Legalize marijuana and don't tax it but let the government produce and sell it as a government-run business.

It's going to be legalized in all the states eventually anyway, so why not use it for some good. Farmland now sitting idle could be put to use. Thousands of jobs would be created, and profits could be used to help feed the hungry in our country and save Social Social Security.

Jim Baker, Hollywood

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TALLAHASSEE- The first medical marijuana will be available in Florida next week.

Trulieve, a grower and dispensary based in Tallahassee, said Wednesday that it has received permission from the Department of Health to start selling a strain of the drug low in THC, the chemical that causes a euphoric high. The Florida Legislature in 2014 legalized that variety of cannabis as a medical option for children with severe epilepsy and cancer. This is the first dispensing license fromthe state health department, Trulieve says. "We are happy to announce that we have passed all inspections-from growing and processing to dispensing- and are the very first medical cannabis provider in the state to receive these formal authorizations," Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers said in a statement.

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