Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Florida

Florida has a rapidly growing medical cannabis industry. The state legalized cannabis for medical use some time back. In the first nine months of 2018, 136,000 new medical cannabis patients were registered. 24% of the overall total patients registered for medical cannabis are for post traumatic stress disorder(PTSD). Florida's newly elected Republican Governor Ron DeSantis continues to look at ways to help grow the medical cannabis industry. Some of the steps that have been taken include allowing cannabis in smokable form to be prescribed for medical patients. This was earlier disallowed but the law has now been changed. This is expected to raise revenues for the medical cannabis industry through the increased sale of cannabis in smokable flower form. Another law that is said to hamper competition and growth of the industry is the mandatory vertical integration of growers, distributors and sellers, sellers in the medical cannabis scenario being dispensaries.. This is being re-looked at so that businesses can independently manage the different stages thus promoting competition and growth. There has also been an unnecessarily high focus on keeping delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol(THC) content below strict low levels in the belief that THC is the villain in the plant that needs to be tightly controlled. More and more studies are emerging regarding the medical benefits of THC. In fact research studies from the University of South Florida (Tampa) dating back to 1990 and 2004 show THC's ability to fight the herpes virus though not in smokable form but as a topical application of crushed plant and alcohol to the affected regions.

Recently one of the leading medical cannabis companies in the state won a case that now allows it to open 49 cannabis dispensaries through the state. There was an earlier cap of 25 dispensaries per company which was then raised to 30. Florida has emerged as the hub of retail shops that sell high end cannabidiol(CBD) products with three of the top rated CBD shops in the country being located in the state.

There are underlying problems that still need to be addressed however. For one thing the state needs to move to legalization of adult recreational cannabis use so that more people who need the plant as medicine and recreation, especially the ones who have paid the greatest price in the war in cannabis over the decades who are the poorest, the minorities, the indigenous people, the elderly, the ill, the youth and women can access it instead of it becoming a high end product only accessible to the wealthy and the people with medical certifications. Florida needs to take this step as done in the US states that have legalized cannabis for recreational use. This may mean that the medical cannabis industry gets consumed by the recreational market as has been seen elsewhere but the health and safety of Florida's people should be the overriding factor driving policy and not the protection of the medical cannabis industry that threatens to become another of the big businesses that have deprived the world of cannabis. As is evidenced, Florida faces high incidence of synthetic and chemical drugs of a dangerous nature ending up in the hands of the state's youth and people who have no recourse to safe recreational drugs like cannabis. One of the reasons for this is that vulnerable individuals are forced to interact with the black market that often has unscrupulous elements trying to snare individuals with cannabis and then up selling them to more harmful synthetic drugs for greater profits. The emergence of drugs like Flakka the zombie drug and its variants are evidence of the harm that is being wrought on society with the prohibition of cannabis.

There have been unpleasant incidents like the closure by the bank of the campaign account of the state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried since she is said to have received money from the emerging cannabis industry.

Overall you could say that Florida has reached a good space in terms of medical cannabis but it now needs to stop the protection of the medical cannabis industry and take the important step towards adult recreational use legalization so that the plant reaches the wider sections of society that need it and so that the harms that have been inflicted in the past due to cannabis prohibition can be corrected. This will be economically, medically, environmentally, socially, industrially, agriculturally, tourism-ally, and legally beneficial to name just a few areas as is evident from other states that have legalized recreational use.

At least 35 US states have legalized cannabis for medical use so far. The federal US government however continues to keep cannabis in the Schedule 1 list of banned substances saying that it has no medicinal value. The list of US states that have legalized adult recreational cannabis is available here. All these states have legalized cannabis for adult recreational use, aimed specifically at improving public health, ensuring equity, reducing crime, decreasing the black market, improving law enforcement, reforming criminal justice, improving the economy, agriculture and industry, to name just a few reasons.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

'Malathion, another of the organic phosphates, is almost as familiar to the public as DDT, being widely used by gardeners, in household insecticides, in mosquito spraying, and in such blanket attacks on insects as the spraying of nearly a million acres of Florida communities for the Mediterranean fruit fly. It is considered the least toxic of this group of chemicals and many people assume they may use it freely and without fear of harm. Commercial advertising encourages this comfortable attitude.

The alleged 'safety' of malathion rests on rather precarious ground, although - as often happens - this was not discovered until the chemical had been in use for several years. Malathion is 'safe' only because the mammalian liver, an organ with extraordinary protective powers, renders it relatively harmless. The detoxification is accomplished by one of the enzymes of the liver. If, however, something destroys this enzyme or interferes with its action, the person exposed to malathion receives the full force of the poison.'

- Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962

'Over the first 10 weeks of 2020, dispensaries in Florida sold an average of 22,800 ounces of smokable MMJ per week.

However, dispensaries sold nearly 36,400 ounces during the seven-day period beginning March 13 – an increase of 38% from the previous week – just as COVID-19 fears began to enter the mainstream.

Florida’s program reports weekly sales figures beginning on a Friday and ending the following Thursday.

The seven-day period beginning April 17 was another record week for sales in Florida, with patients purchasing a collective 39,290 ounces of smokable flower.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/florida-medical-cannabis-market-booms-despite-pandemic-american-economic-woes/