Florida Officials Are Revoking Medical Marijuana IDs From Patients And Caregivers With Drug Convictions Under Law Signed By DeSantis

Florida medical marijuana officials are actively revoking the registrations
of patients and caregivers with drug-related criminal records.

The policy is part of broad budget legislation signed into law earlier this
year by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). The provisions in question direct the state
Department of Health (DOH) to cancel registrations of medical marijuana
patients and caregivers if they’re convicted of—or plead guilty or no
contest to—criminal drug charges.

The measure says a patient or caregiver will have their registration
immediately suspended upon being charged with a covered state drug crime,
and the suspension will remain in place until the criminal case reaches a
final disposition. DOH officials have authority to reinstate the
registration, revoke it entirely or extend the suspension if needed.

Bobbie Smith, director of the Florida Office of Medical Marijuana Use
(OMMU), told lawmakers on Wednesday that regulators are already banning
people from the medical cannabis program under the new policy.

OMMU has “identified 20 individuals that meet the new requirement for
revocation, and there’s roughly 140 that we’re still monitoring as they
wait make their way through the criminal justice system,” she said at a
hearing of the House Health Professions & Programs Subcommittee in comments
first reported by Florida Politics.

Under the law, authorities are required to revoke a person’s registration
if the patient or caregiver “was convicted of, or pled guilty or nolo
contendre to, regardless of adjudication, a violation [of state drug law]
if such violation was for trafficking in, the sale, manufacture, or
delivery of, or possession with intent to sell, manufacture, or deliver a
controlled substance.”

The enacted version of the legislation focuses specifically on production
and distribution. It does not contain an earlier restriction from prior
versions that would have also revoked registrations for people who merely
purchased illegal drugs, including more than 10 grams of marijuana for
their own use.

It also clarifies that patients and caregivers have a process to request
their registrations be reinstated. That involves submitting a new
application “accompanied by a notarized attestation by the applicant that
he or she has completed all the terms of incarceration, probation,
community control, or supervision related to the offense.”

It’s not clear from the plain language of the revised bill whether it will
impact only future criminal cases involving medical marijuana patients and
caregivers or whether DOH would need to review the records of existing
program registrants and revoke registrations of an untold number of
Floridians with past drug convictions.

Florida lawmakers defeated several proposals to expand the medical cannabis
program during this year’s regular legislation session—including by
allowing home cultivation, adding new qualifying conditions, protecting
employment and parental rights of patients and letting military veterans
register for free.

Meanwhile, DeSantis recently acknowledged in a speech that marijuana
legalization is popular with voters even though he opposes it and
campaigned to defeat a reform initiative on the state’s ballot last year.


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Advocates are now working on a new cannabis initiative that they hope to
place on Florida’s 2026 ballot. As of this summer, the renewed legalization
campaign has collected more than 75 percent of the required signatures to
put the marijuana measure before voters next year, according to state
officials.

DeSantis said in February that the newest proposal is in “big time trouble”
with the state Supreme Court, predicting it will be blocked from going
before voters next year.

Smart & Safe Florida is hoping the revised version will succeed in 2026.
The campaign—which in the last election cycle received tens of millions of
dollars from cannabis industry stakeholders, principally the multi-state
operator Trulieve—incorporated certain changes into the new version that
seem responsive to criticism opponents raised during the 2024 push.

For example, it now specifically states that the “smoking and vaping of
marijuana in any public place is prohibited.”Another section asserts that
the legislature would need to approve rules dealing with the “regulation of
the time, place, and manner of the public consumption of marijuana.”

Last year, the governor accurately predicted that the 2024 cannabis measure
from the campaign would survive a legal challenge from the state attorney
general. It’s not entirely clear why he feels this version would face a
different outcome.

While there’s uncertainty around how the state’s highest court will
navigate the measure, a poll released in February showed overwhelming
bipartisan voter support for the reform—with 67 percent of Florida voters
backing legalization, including 82 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of
independents and 55 percent of Republicans.

However, the results conflict with another recent poll from the Florida
Chamber of Commerce, a proactive opponent of legalization, that found
majority support for the reform among likely voter (53 percent) but not
enough to be enacted under the 60 percent requirement.

Another recent poll of Florida Republican voters showed just 40 percent of
that demographic said they’d vote in favor of the legalization proposal.

In the background of the campaign’s signature development, DeSantis signed
a GOP-led bill in June to impose significant restrictions on the ability to
put initiatives on the ballot—a plan that could impair efforts to let
voters decide on marijuana legalization next year.

Meanwhile in Florida, a state senator recently filed a pair of bills for
the 2026 legislative session that would provide employment and parental
rights protections for registered medical marijuana patients.

The post Florida Officials Are Revoking Medical Marijuana IDs From Patients
And Caregivers With Drug Convictions Under Law Signed By DeSantis appeared
first on Marijuana Moment.