Florida’s ballot initiative to legalize recreational pot has divided the state’s medical marijuana industry. The state’s largest medical marijuana company bankrolled Amendment 3, which would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older. Some of the 2,000 doctors who are state-certified to recommend pot as medicine are warning patients about the consequences that could jeopardize access to the drug for medicinal purposes, Politico reports. They say the new amendment could imperil access for the state’s 882,000 active medical marijuana patients. The anticipated flood of customers visiting medical marijuana dispensaries to buy recreational pot could leave patients without the plant strains or products they use to treat medical conditions like chronic pain or a serious illness. Passage of Amendment 3 could kick off a regulatory overhaul that they say would place future regulation in the hands of a GOP-led legislature that has been trying to tighten controls for years. Pensacola marijuana doctor Michelle Beasley said she should be telling patients to support Amendment 3, but she cannot ignore language in the medical marijuana law that some people call a “poison pill,” which says the law would expire if voters adopt another cannabis-related constitutional amendment.
The Legislature approved the 2017 medical pot law regulating the industry after voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment legalizing use for medicinal purposes in 2016. “You’d think we’d want Amendment 3 because we should all be supporting legalization, and I really do, but I still haven’t gotten around what that part of the law keeps saying to me,” Beasley said. “My gut feeling is that won’t happen, and those lines will be stricken, but there are just no guarantees right now, and we don’t know where to go for answers.” The language in the 2017 law was inserted in the interest of creating one unified regulatory structure. The language gives the GOP-dominated legislature, which is broadly opposed to recreational legalization, a freer hand at regulating the industry. The provision goes on to say that if the legislature has not approved any new regulations to replace the 2017 law, the state will revert back to its low-THC law for medical usage from 2014. Michael Minardi, a Tampa lawyer who has led two previous legalization efforts, said the constitution demands that patients have access to medical marijuana.