HOW FLORIDIAN POLITICIANS ARE DISTRACTING THE FLORIDA CANNABIS MOVEMENT

Central Florida NORML - The two big headlines in Floridian cannabis news today was West Palm County´s decriminalization and the 13 challenges to the Department of Health for their pick of the 5 nurseries for the CBD Bill....

The two big headlines in Floridian cannabis news today was West Palm County´s decriminalization and the 13 challenges to the Department of Health for their pick of the 5 nurseries for the CBD Bill. I diligently wrote articles on both subjects, but after I finished and posted them on their appropriate websites I realized something very important. They are both bullshit!

Both the Compassionate Medical Use Act, or as I like to call it the CBD bill, and the county and city level decimalization efforts have been nothing more than a distraction. A way for politicians to look like they are compassionate and pro-medical marijuana but nothing really changes.

I recently wrote an article that outlines why the CBD Bill is bullshit! It comes from both a patient and a political level. These types of legislations exist to allow politicians to seem companionate by providing medical marijuana patients with medical marijuana. The down side is CBD only cannabis is a very ineffective medicine compared to whole plant cannabis therapy and most of the patients that these bills claim to help will not receive the effective medicine they deserve. In the meantime it allows for a select few, in Florida only five nurseries, to form a sort of oligopoly on the states cannabis business

You also tend to hear of many city and county level ordinances in Florida to decriminalize marijuana. These ordinances allow police officers to give a 100 dollar ticket to people they find with under 20 grams of marijuana. What you don´t normally hear about, is how these ordinances actually leave it up to the police. If these police officers still want to “throw the book“ at you for marijuana possession they can. The truth is in order to even give the officer the option, the offender needs to admit guilt to the officer.

If they do admit guilt, then the officer can decide whether or not to give them the citation or to actually arrest the offender. Because of this nothing has changed in these counties. See for yourself! Go to the Broward Sherriff´s arrest page on the Sun Sentinel´s website and search "marijuana under 20 grams". There have been about 164 arrests in the past 30 days for possession under 20 grams. Innocent people´s lives are still being ruined for possession of marijuana in Broward County and Broward was one of the first counties to decriminalize in the State this year.

So, the question that must be proposed is, what progress has been made in Florida? Patients are still suffering and innocent and nonviolent people´s lives are being still being ruined! There is no progress! The politicians of Florida are playing the medical marijuana movement like a fiddle! “My concern is, I just want to make sure that as we discuss this that we make the message about criminal justice fairness," she said. "I do not, in any way, shape or form, want to send the message that smoking pot is harmless. I frankly do not care what a 25 or 30-year-old does in the privacy of their living room. I do care what kids do. The teenage brain is a construction site, and I don't want to send the message that smoking marijuana is a harmless