Politics
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.
