After the better part of a decade, the Florida Department of Health’s rules on how businesses can enter the state’s medical cannabis industry are finally here. Sort of.
The Department of Health, which regulates the state’s multibillion-dollar medical cannabis industry, released two emergency rules on Monday that indicate, in broad strokes, the application process for companies seeking a medical cannabis treatment center license, which permits them to cultivate, process, and dispense medical cannabis.
One of the rules released Monday says the state will hand out the licenses by “batching” them — meaning not all of the new licenses will be available at once. But the new rule did not specify when the application window will open or exactly how many licenses will be up for grabs with each batch. It’s also not clear how far apart the batches will open.
In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Health said the new rules also incorporate the “citrus preference,” which gives preference to applicants who own at least one facility used to process citrus and who will use that facility to process cannabis.
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