Perhaps nowhere embodies those political grinders mushing green-minded enthusiasm to a pulp, however, than Florida. When 72% of voters said yes to medical marijuana in 2016, the Sunshine State couldn’t anticipate the looming dark clouds that would soon roll in.
It started when state legislators essentially punted on drafting workable legislation surrounding a medical marijuana program. Florida Republicans displayed antagonistic attitudes toward cannabis, and you could speculate this political gesture was them stomping their foot in the ground. Or you could follow other rumors that Florida’s Congress just wasn’t competent enough to figure things out. Either way, the end result was that responsibility falling to the hands of the state’s Department of Health.
As the saying goes, it was not good, Bob. The rickety system the Health Department constructed has resulted in the following: doctors unprepared to deliver sound medical marijuana advice, medical cannabis access being denied to nursing home patients, and possibly nefarious clinics preying on those in desperation. But nowhere represents the state’s willful ignorance than its ban on smokable marijuana for medical patients. Many voters assumed what they approved at the polls in 2016 included access to cannabis flower, as the phrase “smokable marijuana ban” was not included in the question proposed to voters.