Jacob Redmond
Well-Known Member
Florida's rules for medical marijuana will be crafted in part by a 12-member panel that includes Winter Garden nurseryman Bruce Knox and at least eight others in position to make money from the law.
The 12 make up a committee formed to help the Florida Department of Health determine how to select, license and regulate Florida companies to grow a non-euphoric cannabis, make a medicinal oil from it and sell it to patients.
The law, approved last year, allows patients with intractable epilepsy and several other medical disabilities to use the cannabis oil. But the department's efforts to write regulations bogged down in legal challenges from growers, court rulings and bureaucracy. So the committee was announced to negotiate rules the growers could accept.
They will meet in Tallahassee on Feb. 4-5 to create rules replacing those thrown out in December by Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins of Tallahassee.
Five of the 12 seats on the panel were awarded to growers who could wind up winning one of the five regional licenses. At least four others are people representing other companies that could get involved in the budding Florida legal cannabis industry.
"I think the department has been very thoughtful and mindful to try to create a group that stands the best chance of creating the regulatory framework that is going to make it successful," said Knox, whose nursery founded in 1962 annually produces about 125 million plants, mostly seedlings for wholesale growers.
Other proponents of medical marijuana welcomed the prospect.
"We hope the formation of this committee means that [the law] will finally be implemented and suffering patients will be able to see relief in short order," said Ben Pollara, director of United For Care, which is pushing medical marijuana in Florida.
Other growers on the committee are George Hackney of Hackney Nursery Company in Quincy; Robert Wallace of Chestnut Hill Nursery and Orchards in Alachua; John Tipton of Plants of Ruskin in Ruskin; and Pedro Freyre of Miami-based Costa Farms in Miami.
A sixth committee seat went to a Colorado grower, Joel Stanley, whose company created the most well-known brand of cannabis oil called "Charlotte's Web."
His brand could become the basis of the crops grown in Florida, along with as many as 20 other marijuana strains available nationally that could meet Florida's law, according to reports the Florida Department of Health received during hearings last summer.
Also appointed was botanist Darrin Potter. His employer, GrowHealthy, is building a facility in Lake Wales it hopes can be used to grow marijuana for medical-marijuana products. A UCF grad, Potter was a cultivator and grow master for several medical marijuana faculties in Colorado and California, before coming back to Florida to join GrowHealthy.
Another appointee is Jill Lamoureux, a lobbyist for CannLabs, a product testing firm in Colorado. She also is a former cannabis dispensary operator who helped draft Colorado's and Washington state's regulations.
Holley Moseley, whose daughter RayAnn suffers dozens of seizures a day, was appointed as the patient advocate representative. She helped found Realm of Caring Florida, a Sunshine State franchise of Stanley's company, Realm of Caring.
The final three seats went to Miami horticulturalist and anesthesiologist Dr. Jeffrey Block, Tallahassee lawyer Donna Blanton and Office of Compassionate Use Director Patricia Nelson.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Florida medical marijuana committee heavy with commercial interests - Orlando Sentinel
Author: Scott Powers
Contact: smpowers@tribune.com
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: Orlando News, Weather & Sports - Orlando Sentinel
The 12 make up a committee formed to help the Florida Department of Health determine how to select, license and regulate Florida companies to grow a non-euphoric cannabis, make a medicinal oil from it and sell it to patients.
The law, approved last year, allows patients with intractable epilepsy and several other medical disabilities to use the cannabis oil. But the department's efforts to write regulations bogged down in legal challenges from growers, court rulings and bureaucracy. So the committee was announced to negotiate rules the growers could accept.
They will meet in Tallahassee on Feb. 4-5 to create rules replacing those thrown out in December by Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins of Tallahassee.
Five of the 12 seats on the panel were awarded to growers who could wind up winning one of the five regional licenses. At least four others are people representing other companies that could get involved in the budding Florida legal cannabis industry.
"I think the department has been very thoughtful and mindful to try to create a group that stands the best chance of creating the regulatory framework that is going to make it successful," said Knox, whose nursery founded in 1962 annually produces about 125 million plants, mostly seedlings for wholesale growers.
Other proponents of medical marijuana welcomed the prospect.
"We hope the formation of this committee means that [the law] will finally be implemented and suffering patients will be able to see relief in short order," said Ben Pollara, director of United For Care, which is pushing medical marijuana in Florida.
Other growers on the committee are George Hackney of Hackney Nursery Company in Quincy; Robert Wallace of Chestnut Hill Nursery and Orchards in Alachua; John Tipton of Plants of Ruskin in Ruskin; and Pedro Freyre of Miami-based Costa Farms in Miami.
A sixth committee seat went to a Colorado grower, Joel Stanley, whose company created the most well-known brand of cannabis oil called "Charlotte's Web."
His brand could become the basis of the crops grown in Florida, along with as many as 20 other marijuana strains available nationally that could meet Florida's law, according to reports the Florida Department of Health received during hearings last summer.
Also appointed was botanist Darrin Potter. His employer, GrowHealthy, is building a facility in Lake Wales it hopes can be used to grow marijuana for medical-marijuana products. A UCF grad, Potter was a cultivator and grow master for several medical marijuana faculties in Colorado and California, before coming back to Florida to join GrowHealthy.
Another appointee is Jill Lamoureux, a lobbyist for CannLabs, a product testing firm in Colorado. She also is a former cannabis dispensary operator who helped draft Colorado's and Washington state's regulations.
Holley Moseley, whose daughter RayAnn suffers dozens of seizures a day, was appointed as the patient advocate representative. She helped found Realm of Caring Florida, a Sunshine State franchise of Stanley's company, Realm of Caring.
The final three seats went to Miami horticulturalist and anesthesiologist Dr. Jeffrey Block, Tallahassee lawyer Donna Blanton and Office of Compassionate Use Director Patricia Nelson.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Florida medical marijuana committee heavy with commercial interests - Orlando Sentinel
Author: Scott Powers
Contact: smpowers@tribune.com
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: Orlando News, Weather & Sports - Orlando Sentinel
