Florida doctor threatens permanent ban on medicinal cannabis

According to local news reports, a doctor in Tallahassee, Fla. is facing significant penalties from the state after he allegedly failed to adequately screen patients before ordering them medicinal cannabis.

The Florida News Service reported Monday that the state Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a series of harsh penalties against physician Joseph Dorn, including a permanent ban on patients ordering medical cannabis, a $10,000 fine and a five-year suspension of his license to practice medicine Physician.

Health officials recommended the penalties to Administrative Judge W. David Watkins, who “held a hearing in Dorn’s case in October [and] is considering proposed recommended orders filed Thursday by the Health Department and Dorn’s attorney, Ryan Andrews,” the report said.

Dorn finds himself in a predicament after an investigation that reportedly “involved undercover agents masquerading as patients.”

The state accuses Dorn, whose medical practice in the Sunshine State spans three decades, of failing to conduct exams on two of those undercover patients — referred to in the complaint as “Patient OG” and “Patient BD” — and possibly him in violation of “a 2017 law that requires doctors to use certain procedures before deciding patients are eligible for medical marijuana, such as B. to decide that its use would outweigh potential health risks,” the News Service of Florida report explained.

“Rather than acknowledging that responsibility, the defendant (Dorn) used his designation as a qualified physician to liberally qualify patients to receive medical marijuana, providing only cursory consultations and ignoring many of the requirements imposed by the legislature,” the attorneys for the Department of Health in the recommended order as specified in the report.

But Andrews, Dorn’s attorney, claims the state “has presented no evidence to support its claim,” and says the agency “does not know what the health benefits or risks of medical marijuana are.”

“Ironically, the only trick or plan used in this case was that of the petitioner (the agency) intentionally giving BD and OG to Dr. Dorn sent to get him to order medical marijuana for BD and OG based on her presentation of unlawful falsehoods regarding her qualifying conditions (i.e. PTSD and anxiety, among others),” Andrews wrote in his recommendations, as dated News Service of Florida cited.

The case comes as Florida lawmakers are considering a number of proposals designed to improve access to the state’s medicinal cannabis program.

Andrew Learned, a Florida Representative for the Democratic House of Representatives, introduced legislation last month at the start of the legislature that would “cut costs to people by requiring fewer doctor visits, allowing patients to keep their registration cards for two years instead of one.” and give people the ability to refill their prescriptions via telemedicine,” according to a local news report.

The bill also aims to establish regulations for products like Delta-8, the hemp extract that can induce a high similar to cannabis.

Learned called the law the “first bipartisan marijuana package we’ve actually implemented as a state in five years since the constitutional amendment was passed.”

“That does things like, again, like keeping harmful products out of the hands of kids, it makes sure we’re cleaning up advertising statues so we’re not inadvertently promoting medical marijuana products to minors in general,” Learned said at the time. “It improves the program from a practical perspective, like I said, with telemedicine, but also things like DUI testing and creating testing councils for it. Make sure products are safe and that, for example, a hemp product like a CBD is really a CBD. At the moment there are no pre-sale testing requirements.”