Sue City Of Miami Pharmacies For The Right To Open; The Florida Supreme Court casts a recreational ballot

By Nina Zdinjak

The state of Florida legalized medical cannabis in 2016 through a constitutional amendment that allows the formation of a fully legal medical cannabis program. The initiative was accepted with 71% of the vote.

Even so, Miami’s city government has refused to allow cannabis dispensaries, The Miami Herald reported.

State Vs. Federal Law

State lawmakers never put zoning restrictions in place to regulate where pharmacies can be opened or new laws created, relying instead on an internal legal view that changing the Florida Constitution was controversial as federal law continued to use marijuana as an illegal substance without drug classifies value, ”says the report.

Now two companies that want to open medical cannabis dispensaries in the city center have filed lawsuits against the city of Miami. They question the city’s decision that federal law is a higher authority than the Florida Constitution.

RELATED: Did Florida Knowingly Violate Medical Marijuana Regulations?

On the flip side, other local governments have set zoning regulations that mandate locations where pharmacies are allowed. The state has an estimated 270 pharmacies.

MRC44 has been filing for city approval to open a pharmacy since 2019, and recently put Miami’s zoning board on its side in an appeal, the Herald reported.

While the commissioners were due to settle the matter on Thursday, they postponed the decision as another company filed the same type of lawsuit in the Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Wednesday.

Photo by Del Adams via Pexels

Both companies argue they should have the right to open pharmacies anywhere in Miami without municipal approval just because the city doesn’t have a medical cannabis regulation.

“We will bring it up in court,” Prosecutor Victoria Méndez said on Thursday, adding, “I feel that there is a discrepancy or conflict between federal and state law, and I would just like to ask a court to approve it judge.”

Florida Supreme Court closes the initiative to adult use

The lawsuits follow Thursday’s decision by the Florida Supreme Court to halt a recreational marijuana polling initiative in 2022 in a 5-2 ruling.

The court ruled on Make It Legal Florida reformInitiative, backed by hundreds of thousands of voters, is “affirmatively misleading,” reported Marijuana Moment.

The initiative has been found to be misleading because it claims that adult cannabis is legal in the state without recognizing that it is still illegal at the federal level.

Because of this decision, proponents of cannabis in the state are starting from scratch, which means devising another measure and reassigning signatures in the hopes of getting a proposal in front of voters in 2022.

This article originally appeared on Benzinga and was republished with permission.