The following video is Rep. Katie Edwards' impassioned plea to Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, to kill the 90-day wait period in House Bill 1397 on medical marijuana -- asking him to make sure the bill considers patients first.
Edwards, D-Plantation, is one of the originators of Florida's 2014 medical marijuana law allowing noneuphoric strains of marijuana for epilepsy and cancer.
In the video below, Edwards was speaking specifically to Rodrigues during the April 18 meeting of the House Appropriations Committee. The rule at issue says patients must have a 90-day relationship with a doctor before that doctor can recommend marijuana.
Though the waiting period was part of the original bill, Edwards now says including it was a mistake.
Here, she tearfully tells her fellow committee members how the issue has come to affect her personally -- that her cousin’s infant son developed a rare form of cancer: “I’m the lawmaker who has to defend the 90-day waiting period and I can’t keep apologizing for that anymore. To tell a loved one, my own cousin and have to rationalize the irrational, we can’t do that.”
Edwards' entire commentary, in video form, is below:
Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation, worked with former Rep. (now Congressman) Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, to get Florida's groundbreaking "Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014" passed.
