Indopedia All Things Marijuana
Since Floridians voted to expand their medical cannabis program last year, state lawmakers have pushed to limit the ways marijuana can be consumed. Despite the controversial attempts to restrict the newly approved medical cannabis expansion, the number of registered patients continues to grow immensely.
During the first three years under Florida’s highly restrictive medical cannabis laws, there were 16,760 people registered for treatment. But since the list of qualifying ailments was expanded to 10, the patient list has nearly doubled to 31,051.
However, the Florida Office of Medical Marijuana Use has failed to keep up with the explosive demand, leaving many patients without the state-issued identification needed to purchase pot. The department only has 12 employees, a tall order for an office that handles anywhere from 1,000 to 1,300 phone calls a day. On top of that, there’s around 3,000 applications pending at once.
Currently, the system requires approved patients to wait 30 days after applying to receive their medical marijuana card, a major improvement over the state’s previous 90-day process. But many feel that the four-week wait period is still too…
