Pasco County's Year-Long Ban on Medical Marijuana
On December 13, 2016, Pasco county commissioners passed a year-long moratorium (temporary ban) on medical marijuana dispensaries. Ordinance 16-43 bans the use of any property for the "cultivation, processing, or dispensing of cannabis", even for medical purposes. This means that anyone seeking to use marijuana medicinally will need to purchase it from outside of the county until the year-long ban has ended. Although the ban is for 365 days, the county commission board has the power to end it at any time it pleases.
On November 8, Florida voters passed Proposition 2, which amended the state constitution to legalize medical marijuana. Florida voters approved the proposition with an overwhelming 71.32% voting for legalization. Despite overwhelming support for legalization from Florida voters in general and Pasco voters in particular, the Pasco county commission is keeping medical marijuana production and distribution out of Pasco for the time being.
Their reason for doing so? To iron out how to zone medical marijuana dispensaries. Instead of responding to the clear wishes of their constituents, the county would rather wait a year getting stuck on how to best zone these dispensaries. Many of the commissioners want to zone the future dispensaries in industrial zones rather than retail zones, even though industrial zones are more likely to have higher crime. The commission is too afraid to uphold the Florida state constitution without first having a year-long debate on how to zone them. Here's the deal : the Florida state constitution explicitly legalizes medical marijuana. It states in Section 29 (a)(1), "The medical use of marijuana by a qualifying patient or caregiver in compliance with this section is not subject to criminal or civil liability or sanctions under Florida law." Our Pasco county commissioners have just criminalized an act that Florida voters have legalized.
Our Pasco County commissioners have just criminalized an act that Florida voters have legalized.
The Pasco county commission's rejection of the Florida state constitution and the will of its citizens on the issue of medical marijuana is not a victimless crime. The obvious consequence of banning a form of medicine is that you make life harder on the sick people in the community, and possibly prevent them entirely from getting the medicine they need. At the commission meeting, Jamie Howe (New Port Richey), who says that medical marijuana saved her life, told the commissioners, "For patients like myself who are suffering in your county, that is absolutely unacceptable... I don't understand why you guys would make it harder for patients to access this life-saving medicine." Jamie also reminded the board that 71% of Pasco voters approved amendment 2. Another Pasco resident told commissioners that due to their seemingly endless moratoriums on medical marijuana dispensaries, many people are having to travel to Pinellas and Hillsborough counties to access medicinal marijuana.
"I don't understand why you guys would make it harder for patients to access this life-saving medication."
Evident from the December 13 meeting, all of the county commissioners have very different ideas as to how to regulate the dispensaries. Kathryn Starkey, Ron Oakley, and Mike Moore all expressed disgust at the idea of having anything close to a free market in terms of this newly available medicine. These three strongly agreed that Pasco needs restrictive government measures to limit competition in this area, but they disagreed as to how best to limit it. Mike Wells and Jack Mariano did not advocate a free and open market, but did oppose the extent to which the other three were willing to go in order to restrict the availability of future medical marijuana dispensaries in Pasco county.
