The Florida Legislature is continuing to grapple with the issue of implementing Amendment 2 on medical marijuana.
With 10 bills filed in both the Senate and House, there are plenty of ideas of how to proceed, but the answer is still elusive right now.
The most likely scenario is to work with the existing infrastructure created by the Legislature over the past couple of years and then let it grow naturally.
But critics, including proponents, don’t like that.
They believe they know what voters wanted.
Except they don’t.
And this is what happens when one proposes a constitutional amendment that isn’t self-executing.
You’ve got to depend on the Legislature to put the concept into reality, and therein is the proverbial rub.
The Legislature will perform its duty, but it just might not be the way the proponents want, and that’s just “poetic justice.”
Just like with Amendment 1, the Legislature will have the last say on how to put rules in place to govern these run-arounds.
Of course, there are always the courts, but that doesn’t necessarily produce the desired results either -- just ask the Florida Education Association about that.
Medical marijuana should be available to those who truly need it. No one disputes that.
And there is a process for physicians to determine who rightfully should have access and it's clearly spelled out in the amendment language.
Thankfully, it seems the Legislature will dispense with the 90-day waiting list for those who have a fatal disease, because it makes no sense for these patients to have to wait an arbitrary time before they get what they need to die peacefully and without pain.
It’s everyone else we need to worry about.
The House has taken the conservative stance, as one would expect, that smoking and eating aren’t in the best interests of those who need med pot, and their bill calls for neither delivery method to be available to patients who are on the registry but aren’t dying.
The Senate has taken a different approach in the seven different bills filed in that chamber.
But, perhaps the most important initiative that’s been proposed is the one receiving the least attention.
That’s the desperate need for scientific research on how best to deliver this so-called “medicine” to the patient.
If you listen to the proponents, just let everyone smoke pot to solve all their health problems.
Yet, there’s just this little problem with that concept.
Smoking anything has serious consequences on one’s health.
Of course, to the proponents it’s none of the state’s business to regulate medical pot because the people have spoken.
Think again.
That’s why Smart Justice is so appreciative of Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, and freshman Rep. Jackie Toledo, R-Tampa, for introducing legislation that would establish a system to investigate the medicinal qualities of cannabis.
Their bill would put the research under the auspices of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa and would create a board of seven highly qualified individuals who would oversee the much-needed research into medicinal cannabis.
As the bills (SB 1472/HB 1177) state, they would investigate “the correct dosing, formulation, route, modality, frequency, quantity and quality of cannabis for specific illnesses.”
This, thankfully, fulfills the promise made by Florida’s elected officials that our state would become a leader, a model on how to best implement the amendment if it were to pass.
It does, and now we’re finally going to try and put the horse back in front of the carriage.
No medicine has ever been made available to the consuming public without first having been tested in clinical trials approved by the Food & Drug Administration. Marijuana is the only exception, and it’s because of federal law making marijuana a Schedule I drug.
Yet, we know little or next to nothing about any purported medicinal benefits except for anecdotal stories repeated so often by proponents that it’s considered gospel, and for anyone to question it, they are evil and mean-spirited to another person’s plight.
Rep. Dane Eagle, R-Fort Myers, has already proposed a $2.46 million infusion of cash for the University of Florida Pharmacy School for research and development of the registry that all patients must be on to get their cannabis.
We applaud Rep. Eagle, along with Sen. Galvano and Rep. Toledo for putting safety first because we want to know much more about how medical cannabis can help resolve pain issues and whether it can make life bearable for patients who otherwise would be forced to consume addictive opioids.
We get this.
However, we must focus on the research and so Smart Justice, which has advocated for the last three years for cannabis research dollars, is very pleased to know that a nationally renown cancer center will be the center of this research.
What we don’t know is scary.
We don’t know how much cannabis to give to a child with epileptic seizures vs. an adult who has the same issue. How do we compensate for the weight differences? What’s best, a tincture, a patch, vaping, a pill?
How often should an adult with HIV/AIDS get cannabis, and what is the proper dosage?
In the end, the Florida Legislature will do the right thing.
They’ll keep the current system of vertical integration in place. They may lower the bonding requirement, almost certainly lower the number of education hours for physicians, allow for some growth in the number of growers as the number of patients increase, and will determine which delivery methods are most suitable.
For those of us who are still skeptical, scientific research is the right course of action that provides the most protection for Floridians.
Barney Bishop III is a former executive director of the Florida Democratic Party and a self-professed conservative Democrat.
Comments
Thanks, Barney. Well