More than 12,226 medical marijuana cards issued in Fla. with $10 from each going to FAMU

Back on June 23, Gov. Rick Scott signed SB 8-A “Medical Use of Marijuana” into law. The law instructs the Florida Department of Health to “issue medical marijuana use registry identification cards for qualified patients and caregivers who are residents of this state, which must be renewed annually.”

An August 23 report by the Miami Herald stated that “as of Aug. 6, the state had awarded 12,226 [cards].” That number is just the beginning. The Herald report also said that “since June 7, the number of patients certified over the entire first three years of Florida’s fledgling cannabis program has nearly doubled from 16,760 to more than 31,000.”

$10 from each medical marijuana card fee goes to Florida A&M University.

An amendment that state Sen. Darryl Rouson successfully attached to SB 8-A mandates that the Florida Department of Health “allocate $10 of the identification card fee to the Division of Research at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University for the purpose of educating minorities about marijuana for medical use and the impact of the unlawful use of marijuana on minority communities.”

Rouson told the Tallahassee Democrat that he pushed the amendment because the original version of the bill provided research funding to the University of Florida and University of South Florida, but not FAMU.

“I was of the belief the (original) bill created disparities,” Rouson told the Democrat. “The University of Florida, a fine research institution, was gifted with an appropriation. Moffett (Cancer Center) [at USF] was given an appropriation.”

Rouson continued: “The flagship African-American university in the state, which also is known for research, should be given an appropriation as well. The minority community has suffered greatly in areas of addiction, for unlawful use and economic disparities.”