Sally Kent Peebles Discusses Cannabis Updates, Including Florida Supreme Court Ruling with WJCT Public Media

Jun 3, 2021

The Florida Supreme Court recently issued a long-awaited ruling in the case Florida Department of Health v. Florigrown, LLC. The Court ruled in favor of the Florida Department of Health (DOH) after a three-year legal battle. The Court's opinion reversed a lower court ruling and rejected Florigrown, LLC's challenge on the cap on medical marijuana treatment center licenses and vertical integration requirement. As a background, Florigrown was denied a medical marijuana treatment center license in 2017 and argued that Florida's regulations do not comply with the 2016 constitutional amendment that legalized marijuana for medical use. 

VS Jacksonville attorney and Florida Medical Cannabis Advisory Committee co-chair Sally Kent Peebles recently discussed the ruling, noting that the ruling in favor of the DOH will keep the status quo in Florida. She also mentioned that for every 100,000 medical marijuana patients registered, the DOH is supposed to issue four new licenses; however, due to the Florigrown case, everything has been in limbo. Sally anticipates that the department will move forward with issuing additional licenses under the current statute now that the case is in the rearview.

Sally also discussed the vertical integration requirement, which makes it very expensive for operators to enter the Florida cannabis industry; patient access; Florida's THC cap legislation failure; the MORE Act, the Trulieve's acquisition of Harvest Health & Recreation, WISE Florida, and more.

The discussion was lively, with many Floridians calling in and tweeting questions and comments. Listen to the full program here.