Even the Governor is disappointed in the Florida Legislature. They are poised to do some very bad things to patients who want to smoke medical cannabis.

As you know, the Court has ruled the smoking ban defies the intent of the voters who passed Amendment 2 in 2016. In answer to the Court’s decision effectively ending the legislative ban on smoking, the legislature is moving HHS 19-01 and CS/SB 182. These two bills are designed to end the litigation while still effectively banning smoking for most patients.

The Senate version, amended last week over our opposition, would allow terminal patients the right to smoke cannabis. This is disingenuous at best as many patients with a terminal illness are in hospice or other assisted living facilities. These facilities are under no obligation to allow cannabis use, are often concerned about allowing cannabis and state law would force the caregiver to be at the facility many times a day to administer that medicine. Even if all those elements lined up, will the facility really allow smoking?

The Senate requires non-terminal patients to have a second non-cannabis doctor to concur that smoked cannabis is the ONLY delivery method that works for the patient. According to Chair Gayle Harrell who introduced the amendment to Senator Jeff Brandes’ bill, their idea is this second doctor, ideally a specialist in the field will find our patient another form of treatment so they don’t have to use cannabis.

The House version led by Representative (and Chair of Health and Human Services) Ray Rodriguez. Rep Rodriguez has been the House leader on medical marijuana. This version allows for terminal patients to smoke marijuana, while creating a committee to judge on a case-by-case basis whether or not your doctor can recommend smoked marijuana for you (and your visitors…be serious, if Jodi or I were in hospice there would likely be cannabis in the room and we would be experiencing a small amount of euphoria in companionship).

If you believe this is entirely the wrong direction, then take a minute to edit this letter. You can change the subject line and re-write the letter to suit your needs.

The House meets at 10:30 AM and the Senate meets at 4 PM on Tuesday, February 12.