Tag Archives: medical marijuana

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Tampa Bay Times: If smoking is bad, how can smoking medical marijuana be good? We asked doctors.

While smoking medical marijuana is touted for its health benefits, smoking still comes with risks. Doctors say they look forward to seeing more research on the subject as more states allow marijuana in smokeable form. [Shutterstock]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times

When Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature made it legal last month to smoke medical marijuana, they did it in the name of better health — the idea that thousands of Floridians would gain relief from a variety of illnesses.

Yet it seemed to run counter to everything modern medicine says about smoking. Isn’t it really bad for you?

Physicians say yes: Smoking anything, be it tobacco or cannabis, comes with some risk. But the answer is more complicated.

The Florida Department of Health — the agency in charge of implementing and enforcing the rules for Florida’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry — still has to come up with guidelines for licensed cannabis companies to follow for selling smokable “flower,” or the actual granules of the plant. As part of those guidelines, patients will have to sign consent forms outlining the risk associated with smoking.

“With tobacco cigarettes, the concern is nicotine, which is not found in marijuana products,” said Dr. Cary Pigman, an emergency room physician with AdventHealth in Sebring and a Republican state representative from Avon Park.

“What I am concerned about with marijuana, as a physician, is the combustion of plant products, which is basically the inhalation of ash,” Pigman said.

Read more here.

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Tampa Bay Times: Could Tampa’s own Joe Redner shake up the medical marijuana industry?

In a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Health, Tampa strip club owner Joe Redner says he has a right to own marijuana plants for medicinal uses. Redner, 77, is a lung cancer patient. [OCTAVIO JONES | Times]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times 

Joe Redner wants to juice his own marijuana, harvested from his back yard.

The 77-year-old strip club owner with stage 4 lung cancer already has a recommendation from his state-certified physician to do it. But the Florida Department of Health won’t let him.

In an unprecedented lawsuit challenging the state’s interpretation of Amendment 2 and asserting what he says is his own constitutional right, Redner is fighting to grow medical marijuana from his home in Tampa. After months of litigation against the health department, ending in a short trial last month, the judge is expected to rule any day.

But whatever the outcome, Redner’s case could pave the way for other advocates. His is just the first of several lawsuits aimed at giving patients greater access to the alternative medicine that more than 70 percent of Floridians voted for in 2016.

“Hopefully some of this litigation will give more patients the access they want and deserve,” said Ben Pollara, executive director of marijuana advocacy organization Florida for Care and one of the authors of the medical marijuana amendment. “That was the whole point of passing the law.”

The outspoken Redner and other critics across the state say the health department continues to create barriers for more than 95,000 registered patients in Florida that could benefit from marijuana.

“The amendment doesn’t distinguish between the types of medical marijuana,” says Luke Lirot, the Clearwater attorney representing Redner. “It’s been six months and the department of health still hasn’t adopted very basic regulations. It’s difficult right now because doctors don’t know what they’re dealing with yet in terms of regulation.”

Redner’s suit claims the state is not following the public’s will, and says the state Constitution, as amended by voters, defines marijuana as “all parts of the plant.”

More lawsuits are already underway. Orlando attorney and marijuana advocate John Morgan will go to trial in Tallahassee next month to challenge the state’s ban on smoking cannabis.

“A single snowflake causes the avalanche. … People like Joe are the snowflakes,” Morgan said, referring to Redner. “One day cannabis will be legal recreationally, and people will grow it in their back yard. When that will happen, I don’t know. But Joe is on the right track and I hope he’s successful.”

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Tampa Bay Times: Patients face delays, bureaucratic headaches after marijuana clinics close

By Justine Griffin

The remaining Tetra Health Care center is located at 2814 W Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Tampa. Similar to a walk-in urgent care center, Tetra Health Care is a place where patients can see a licensed doctor about obtaining medical marijuana as a form of treatment. [Photo by ALESSANDRA DA PRA | Times]

Thousands of patients who received medical marijuana access from physicians at a half-dozen recently closed clinics in Tampa Bay may be forced to find another doctor soon, which is no easy task due to state restrictions.

Tetra Health Care, a California-based chain that hires licensed doctors to write medical marijuana recommendations at six clinics in Florida, shut down all but one of them last month to focus on working with state lawmakers to make access easier for patients, a company spokeswoman said. But a former doctor with the chain said Tetra ran into financial trouble and stopped paying its physicians and staff in October.

Those in the industry say Tetra’s downsizing is just one sign of many growing pains doctors and companies will face as Florida heads into its second year offering medical marijuana products to registered residents.

“When they stopped paying us is when I left,” said Dr. Kelly King, who worked for Tetra Health Care since the company began opening clinics in Tampa Bay last summer. She said Tetra was still using the passwords of departed physicians to access the state registry that tracks which patients were assigned to them.

“I noticed after I left, they were still putting new patients into my registry,” she said. “People I had never seen or treated before.”

King, who said she treated hundreds of patients during her time with Tetra, also said the company grew too big too fast. Tetra Health Care had one clinic in Sacramento, Calif., before expanding into Florida.

“They never really opened a lot of offices at one time before,” King said.

Tetra had five locations in the Tampa Bay area: two in Tampa and one each in St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Brandon. A sixth was in the Orlando area. Patients are being directed to one remaining center in Tampa, at 2814 W Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., for appointments and doctor recommendations.

“The roadblocks from the state and delays in patient access have resulted in higher operational costs than originally projected for the industry statewide, including for Tetra Health Care. Tetra expects to make full restitution shortly,” said Tanya Cielo, a spokeswoman for Tetra.

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Tampa Bay Times: One Florida bank is willing to risk it all on cannabis when others won’t

First Green Bank, a community bank based in Orlando, is the first in Florida to work with licensed medical marijuana companies. [Photos courtesy of First Green Bank]

By Justine Griffin

Opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Florida naturally comes with a lot of red tape.

Marijuana is still considered an illegal substance at the federal level, despite the 29 states that have legalized it for recreational or medicinal use in recent years. That makes it nearly impossible for banks to fund marijuana distributing companies, which in turn makes it hard for those companies to sign a lease for a store or warehouse or even get insurance.

But one Orlando area community bank is willing to take on the risk.

First Green Bank, a community bank that began in 2009, is working with six out of the seven currently licensed medical marijuana dispensing companies in Florida.

“It all comes down to compliance and transparency, since we’re subject to enhanced money laundering rules,” said James Whitcomb, the chief financial officer of Surterra Holdings Inc., an Atlanta-based medical marijuana company which has grow operations and dispensaries in Florida, including in Tampa. Surterra is a client of First Green Bank. “In order for banks to be compliant with us as customers, they have perform a lot more due diligence. It basically means they have to track every single transaction we make to ensure that no dollar goes to any gang or criminal enterprise,” Whitcomb said.

Because federal law makes it illegal to possess or distribute marijuana — no matter the laws passed in an individual state — it’s considered money laundering, according to the American Bankers Association. It would take an act of Congress to change that. Because of this, most banks in Florida have steered clear of working with the state’s seven licensed growers and distributors of cannabis.

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Tampa Bay Times: Florida’s first walk-in clinics for medical marijuana are opening in Tampa Bay

Patient Julie DiPietrantonio, 67, of St. Petersburg, is examined by Dr. Howard Riker of Tetra Health Care. DiPietrantonio suffers from chronic pain caused by spinal stenosis, degenerative arthritis, and sacroiliitis. She is looking for relief by using medical marijuana. [SCOTT KEELER | Times]

By Justine Griffin

TAMPA — Inside a nondescript white-washed office building across from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa is one of the state’s first walk-in clinics for patients seeking medical marijuana.

Similar to a walk-in urgent care center, Tetra Health Care is a place where patients can see a licensed doctor about obtaining medical marijuana as a form of treatment.

Tracilea Young, president and founder of the California-based chain of clinics, saw an opportunity to expand in Florida after the most recent round of legislation passed in Tallahassee earlier this year. She’s opened six Tetra Health Care clinics in Florida so far. Five of those are in the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa and Brandon locations. She plans to open 20 more across the state by next year.

“With such a high population of aging communities, medical marijuana is needed here,” Young said. “You wouldn’t believe the patients we see who come in here with Excel spreadsheets detailing all the medications they’re on and when they take which pill. I just want to cry for them.”

Medical marijuana is a new but burgeoning industry in Florida, with laws that change nearly every year. Lawmakers have limited the selling and growing of marijuana to seven companies, but that number will expand to 17 this year, based on last-minute legislation that came out of a special session in Tallahassee earlier in this summer.

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