BY FRED GRIMM
A close-up of a flowering marijuana plant in the production room of Modern Health Concepts’ greenhouse on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017. C.M. Guerrero Miami Herald
Never mind heart-rending testimony from the dying, diseased and debilitated, who crowded into five public hearings across Florida this week to beg the state medical marijuana rule-makers to honor the voters’ intent.
Never mind pleas from would-be cannabis farmers and entrepreneurs, who pleaded with state officials to loosen the exclusive, lucrative and utterly inefficient control held by Florida’s medical-pot cartels.
Never mind that Amendment 2, approved by voters in November, demanded that in addition to treating 10 enumerated medical conditions with pot, physicians should also be allowed to prescribe cannabis if they “believe the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks.”
Forget the sick, dying and disabled. Rule No. 1 for medical pot: Nobody has fun
Instead, the misnamed Office of Compassionate Use has floated proposed rules that would allow the Florida Board of Medicine to preempt a doctor’s decision and sharply limit those treatable conditions. The regulations, in another extraordinary invasion of the doctor-patient relationship, would also require a 90-day waiting period before a patient could actually procure prescriptions. Nor will patients be allowed to smoke the stuff — the least expensive delivery system.
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