Florida Fails to Meet the Deadline

October 03,2017 Florida

There is very little chance that Florida will be able to meet its medical marijuana licensing deadline, reports say. This is making the residents quite frustrated with each passing day. But you cannot blame them for the negligence of the state. They were promised licenses and now Florida is failing to meet that promise on time.

It has already been several months in waiting. Officials recently announced that the growers of medical cannabis may not be receiving the licenses for cultivation anytime soon. In other words, they will not be able to sell the products either.

According to the amendment that was passed in Florida this summer, the health officials of this state were supposed to have ten medical licenses distributed by the third of October. Clearly, this is nowhere near implementation, and so the growers have to wait, and so will the consumers. On the other hand, the executive director—Christian Bax—of MMJ office in Florida, had a fair explanation to give. He told the news that the delay was due to the recent Hurricane Irma.

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The other reason, however, may not be as practical. It was that the delay was caused by the lawsuit filed by a farmer recently. According to the farmer, the newly imposed cannabis law in Florida is unfairly narrow. Columbus Smith—the farmer—said that there are simply too many restrictions. This bars most of the black farmers from acquiring the license, and this is not how things should be.

The only legit reason for the delay—the hurricane—was also ruled out soon after, when different news reports gathered that the storm has not affected the weed industry much.

A letter was sent to the lawmakers of the state where Christian Bax implied that the lawsuit filed by Columbus Smith was the reason why licensing is being delayed. It has, in fact, long been a concern whether growers will even have a fair shot at the license or not. An advocate of medical marijuana—Ben Pollara—spoke on the matter, and said,

“It’s not just unlikely, it is literally impossible,”

He was referring to the licensing deadline of October 3rd.

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The new law that is being imposed stated that one out of every ten licenses will be given to a black farmer. But this will only be valid if that farmer is a part of Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit. It claims that it does not discriminate African American farmers in the allocation of licenses. But still, the main concern remains: why exactly should that farmer be a part of the Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit?

It is quite confusing as to how Florida decided that only one out of every ten applicants will be African American. How the state qualifies all ten is a mystery in itself for that matter. The residents of Florida have waited a long time to consume medical cannabis. The way and with the pace things are moving, there is no clue how much longer they would have to wait before the state starts issuing MMJ licenses.

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