The federal government of the United States has continued its harsh stance on marijuana and at that level, it still remains as a schedule 1 drug. However, different states have been allowed to form rules that govern the business of marijuana in their own jurisdiction. This has led to the founding of marijuana laws in 28 states in the U.S. Some of these states have even gone ahead to established recreational pot laws. In this list is Florida State whose reforms on marijuana started to take shape in recent times. The incumbent President and Incoming President-elect, Mr. Donald Trump expressed their full support for medical weed. Obama has on several occasions been quoted saying that weed is less harmful than other substances such as alcohol.
Officials working in Bay County, Florida have in the recent past considered laws that will temporarily prohibit the establishment and operation of medical cannabis dispensaries. For the reason that Florida voters ratified the decriminalization of medical cannabis in November 2016, this is causing a lot of frustration and confusion to a number of residents. Quite a number of individuals believe that cities and counties are preventing marijuana access. However, there are ideally many other state laws that have to be established to support the access of medical pot by medical marijuana patients. Looking at the state of affairs, it means that users will have to wait for a number of months before they can get hold of medical cannabis in spite of these local regulations. In Bay County, a lot more residents are seeking answers concerning the plans held by local officials on matters to do with medical cannabis. Some people may think that it is an effort to control access. However, this is not the case according to Bay County Manager, Mr. Bob Majka.
County Commissioners were given the mandate to vote on a law seeking temporary prohibition on medical weed dispensaries. There have been a lot of misconceptions concerning the purpose of taking such a step. The main word here is dispensaries and not medical cannabis itself. All that is being sought after is the regulation of permitting operations and location of these weed dispensaries selling marijuana for medical use. Mr. Majka said that they were endeavoring to come up with a proactive strategy to form a platform through which the county community can have a discussion concerning this matter. There are those things that the community is interested in and those they are not interested in. Ideally, officials are concerned with the distribution of land use for these dispensaries that will call for amendments to help in good planning. Also, after Florida voters ratified Amendment 2, medical weed became legitimate. However, it will take some time before it can be made accessible to users.
It is expected that the legislature together with the department of health in the county will work together to form regulations needed to address this matter. Should this happen soon, the county and respective cities will be prepared to take on the measure. Most likely, the state procedure will probably take about nine months or even more. Therefore, Majka proposes that the people of Bay County must be where they are supposed to be as a community prior to the state’s readiness to begin giving out licenses to individuals to actually begin operating medical marijuana dispensaries. Once passed, the ordinance of the county will be effected within a period of 10 days from the time when it will be filed. Then, it will be in place for about eight months afterwards. Such ordinances will not have any effect to the people who had the right to use medical weed prior to the recently completed elections.
