Florida judge rules in favor of Leafly and online cannabis ordering
After months without third-party options, medical patients can finally order products again
Medical patients in Florida can again use Leafly and other third-party suppliers to order cannabis from licensed medical marijuana dispensaries, according to a ruling by an administrative judge on Monday.
In February, the Florida Department of Health threatened $ 5,000 in fines for any licensed cannabis dispensary that used third-party services like Leafly to process orders.
“It is a violation to enter into contracts with Leafly.com or any other third-party website for services directly related to the dispensing,” wrote former Health Department chief of staff Courtney Coppola in a February 1, 2021 memo.
In August, Leafly denied the memo’s allegation that its services were banned by Florida’s 2017 Amendment 2, which set the approved framework for the state’s cannabis industry.
Amendment 2 says that accredited operators must control every aspect of their business “from seeds to sales”. This includes cultivation, processing and distribution and should prohibit companies from outsourcing individual steps in the supply chain.
Prior to the February memo, Leafly worked with 277 medical retail locations in Florida, helping process orders from more than half a million patients. Almost all of these contracts were discontinued shortly after the February 2021 memo.
Companies had no choice but to adhere to guidelines from the Department of Health, which withdrew Leafly’s pre-order services from one of the largest patient populations in the country. Florida ranks second after California with around 600,000 medical patients.
Judge Suzanne Van Wyk issued the new ruling Monday after Leafly’s legal team argued that the company does not sell cannabis products because it does not take payments or sell products.
The company’s legal file requested the judge to determine that the Florida Department of Health memo was an “unaccepted and invalid rule.”
On Monday, Judge Van Wyk ruled that banning websites was indeed an unaccepted and invalid rule. She ordered that Florida’s DOH “immediately cease to rely on its policies … regarding online medical marijuana ordering through third-party websites.”
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