Florida Republican State Senator Jeff Brandes “cautiously optimistic” about medical marijuana bill

Share

Early this week State Senator Jeff Brandes from St. Pete filed a broad medical marijuana bill that would legalize the drug for medical use for patients with a bunch of different ailments. Those include things like ALS, AIDS and HIV, seizures, cancer and more broad areas like chronic pain. The move may have shocked some people. That’s because Brandes is a Republican. He and many in his party lobbied hard against a medical marijuana amendment that would have similarly allowed the medical use of cannabis. 58% of voters approved that amendment, but it still failed. The measure required 60% to pass.

Last year the Florida legislature approved and the governor signed a medical marijuana bill allowing the prescription and use of what’s known as Charlotte’s web. That’s a strain of marijuana low in THC – the chemical component in the drug that gets users high – and high in CBD, the therapeutic component. That strain would then be cultivated into an oil and taken orally – not smoked. The measure passed, but it’s tied up in regulatory red tape as a committee struggles to agree on rules to implement the law.

So, now we have this. To weigh in on it, we hear from Brandes and United for Care director Ben Pollara.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

Surly Voices
Player position: