TALLAHASSEE — Five Florida nurseries were selected Monday to cultivate and distribute the first legal marijuana in the state, opening the door to the sale of the non-euphoric strains to treat patients with seizure disorders and cancer by June. But the selection process itself invites legal challenges, as the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Knox Nursery of Winter Garden will grow it for the Central Region, which includes most of Tampa Bay. Alpha Foliage of Homestead will grow it for the Southwest Region, which includes Hillsborough County. Costa Nursery Farms of Miami won the bid for the Southeast Region. Hackney Nursery Co. of Tallahassee will grow it for the Northwest Region. Chestnut Hill Tree Farm of Alachua will be the grower for the Northeast Region.
Four of the nurseries represented on the selection committee — Costa Farms, Hackney Nursery, Chestnut Hill Farms and Knox Nursery — also were winners in the application process, immediately drawing fire from other applicants.
“Today’s award of licenses will raise serious questions about improper influence and self-dealing,” said Taylor Patrick Biehl, a lobbyist for the Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida whose consulting firm represented three of the applicants.
“Maybe they learned something the rest of us didn’t in terms of putting the applications together,” said Jeff Sharkey, who heads the Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida. “Every applicant will be reviewing the scoring and making some decisions in terms of how to proceed.”
The decision moves the state closer to implementing the 2014 law that allows for marijuana extracts that are low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabidiol, or CBD. The law was intended to treat patients with intractable epilepsy and people with advanced cancer. To qualify for the low-THC-based cannabis treatment, patients must obtain permission from a qualified doctor and be added to the Compassionate Use Registry.
Many of the five nurseries teamed with consultants, investors, security firms, technology companies and out-of-state pot growers to develop their application. Each was chosen from a pool of 28 applicants from around the state by a panel of three state reviewers, based on rules set by a panel that included five growers.
