FAMU’s Medical Marijuana Education and Research Initiative has undergone a hard reboot and refocused its mission back to its legislatively intended purpose of educating Florida’s minority communities about the pros and cons of marijuana use both legal and illegal.
In August, we reported that the Florida Department of Health was withholding over $2 million in funding due to the University from fees collected from each medical marijuana registry identification carded issued in Florida. FDOH had determined that FAMU was out of compliance with its legislative intent by being so heavily researched focused and not focused enough on public information or community engagement.
In August, FAMU dismissed the programs founding director and brought in veteran interim Patricia Green-Powell as interim executive director. Powell has spent much her time meeting with legislative stakeholders and Florida Department of Health staff and apologizing for FAMU’s early missteps.
Powell has also redoubled the programs focus on community outreach and engagement by holding seven community forums in three regions of the state – northwest, southwest, and southeast. Additional forums are planned in Tampa Bay (December 19, 2019), Northeast FL (January 18, 2020), North Central FL (February 2020) and Southwest FL (March 2020).
In October, the program made a bold step of holding a community forum at a Melbourne, FL church just before the Sunday service. No word yet, on how many people have actually attend these forums.
The program has now taken to the airwaves with a new weekly half hour radio show that airs on Friday and Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on FAMU’s WANM Radio 90.5 FM in Tallahassee and Gadsden counties; Friday at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on WILD Radio 95.5 FM in West Palm Beach and the Treasure Coast and Sunday at 7 a.m. on WHBX Radio 96.1 in Leon, Gadsden, Jefferson and Wakulla counties. The program is also available 24/7 on the iHeart podcasting platform.
In 2017 the Florida Legislature approved the use of marijuana for medicinal proposes and it did something that no other state had done by mandating that $10 from the sale of each identification card fee go to FAMU, the state’s only public HBCU.