Florida doubles the number of medical cannabis licenses

The Florida Department of Health announced last week that it will open a new licensing round for medical marijuana companies that will double the number of vertically integrated cannabis companies in the state. In an emergency rule released Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that 22 new medical marijuana business licenses would become available, a move that would double the number of the 22 operators currently licensed to manufacture and sell medical marijuana in Florida.

The new emergency rule comes more than six years after Florida voters legalized the medicinal use of cannabis with the passage of a 2016 constitutional amendment. The following year, state legislatures passed legislation regulating the state’s medical marijuana industry with regulations to be enacted for additional cannabis business licenses as the number of registered patients increased.

With the number of registered medical marijuana patients now approaching 790,000, state regulators would have had to issue nearly two dozen medical marijuana business licenses to keep up with the program’s growth, according to data released last week. But as of last week, the Department of Health hadn’t taken any action to issue additional medical marijuana business licenses since the administration of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took control of the state’s executive branch in 2019.

“This is an exciting milestone for Florida’s medical cannabis program that has been in the works for more than five years,” Courtney Coppola, a former director of the state Bureau of Medical Marijuana Use, told The News Service of Florida. “These additional licenses are an important step in advancing the program for Florida’s patients and future licensees.”

Florida Applications will be accepted in April

In December, cannabis regulatory agencies at the state Department of Health and Human Services announced they had developed a process for applying for new medical marijuana business licenses, with plans to accept applications in “batch cycles,” according to media reports. According to the emergency rule released on Friday, the ministry will accept applications for 22 additional licenses between April 24 and April 28. Louise St. Laurent, a former legal counsel for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said the state’s medical marijuana operators are “thrilled” by the regulators’ announcement last week.

“There is no shortage of companies that have been waiting for these rules and watching the department for a chance to compete for these licenses since probably at least 2017,” St. Laurent said Friday.

Florida’s existing medical marijuana operators were licensed under a 2014 law that legalized “non-euphoric” forms of cannabis for a limited number of patients. The new licensing round announced on Friday will be the first batch of new licenses granted since the state passed the measure regulating the medical cannabis industry in 2017.

The 2017 legislation also required the Department of Health and Human Services to issue a license to a black farmer with business ties in Florida. In September, regulators announced that the license would be awarded to a man in Suwannee County, but legal challenges have forced the health department to delay issuing the license to the successful applicant.

Recreational weed initiative planned for 2024

Although Florida has only legalized medical marijuana so far, a constitutional amendment campaign to legalize cannabis for adult use is underway, with plans for the proposal to appear on the ballot for the 2024 election. Last week, organizers of the constitutional amendment campaign, funded largely by Florida’s largest medical marijuana company Trulieve, submitted enough signatures from voters supporting the measure to ask the Florida Supreme Court to review the proposal.

Under state law, the Supreme Court must approve initiatives before they can be put to a vote. In 2021, Florida’s Supreme Court used that power to reject two separate proposals to legalize recreational marijuana, denying state voters a chance to weigh the initiatives. But Jade Green, the president of cannabis industry consultancy Next Titan Capital, believes the fate of the 2021 proposals is unlikely to hamper support for this year’s attempt to legalize adult-use cannabis.

“Florida is definitely an interesting market, especially compared to some other more mature, mature markets,” Green said. “The main reason is that everyone has the same belief that whatever happens in 2024, eventually adult (recreational) cannabis will come to Florida.”

It’s estimated that Florida’s existing medical marijuana industry generates about $1 billion in annual revenue for the state’s operators. The addition of legal recreational marijuana would open up the market to all adults in the state and give companies an additional incentive to enter Florida’s medical marijuana industry.

“If you can make it in Florida before Rec (recreational marijuana) hits, you have a significant advantage in one of the largest cannabis economies not just in the U.S. but in the world,” Green said.