GOP lawmaker questions the benefit of Florida’s medical marijuana program

With nearly 900,000 registered patients, Florida has the largest medical marijuana program in the country. While campaigning against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational cannabis last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed the medical program, boasting that he had legalized smokeable weed in the state in 2019.

But that doesn’t mean the Florida GOP-controlled Legislature is all in with medical marijuana, and on Tuesday one House member asked a state doctor charged with analyzing the effectiveness of cannabis as medicine if its use by Floridians poses more of a risk than a benefit.       

“You’ve made it very clear that there needs to be more research across the gamut of this area, but you’ve also made it clear that a lot of the research that you do have shows this program to be of questionable medical value,” said Northeast Florida Republican Dean Black to Dr. Almut Winterstein, a professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida and director of the Consortium for Medical Marijuana Outcomes Research.

“My question is, do you fear that we’re causing more harm than good?”

Winterstein replied that the question illuminated the “conundrum” that exists when it comes to the medical efficacy of cannabis, which because it is listed as a Schedule 1 controlled substance by the federal government has always had restrictions placed on research. (The Biden administration proposed last year to reclassify the substance as a Schedule III controlled substance).

“That is concerning,” she said in response to Black’s query. “That doesn’t mean that there are not patients who might massively benefit from this, but we haven’t defined the benefit of this.”

In her presentation to the House Professions & Programs Subcommittee, Winterstein reported rapid growth among young adults up to age 25 in Florida in listing anxiety as the medical condition motivating them to seek a medical marijuana prescription. She said that was “fairly strong evidence that marijuana attacks the developing brain negatively — specifically, cognitively.”

But she said that was very different than looking at patients suffering from chronic pain or other medical conditions. 

‘Hip or cool’

“We just don’t know enough about it,” she said, adding that in some cases she thought the motivation to become a patient among young adults was to be “hip or cool.”

Those comments prompted Broward County Democratic Rep. Christine Hunschofsky to speak out — first asking if there had been any survey conducted to back the statement about patients getting a medical card to be “cool.”

“I cannot tell you whether this growing trend that we saw among young adults is because it’s a fashionable thing to do, or if it’s a true health concern,” Winterstein replied. “That would be a really important thing to tackle.”

“I just wanted to make sure that we’re talking about actual data and not opinion as to why people are doing things,” said Hunschofsky.

The South Florida Democrat followed up on Winterstein’s comment that cannabis could impede brain development. She asked, when the doctor was looking at research, was she also looking at the effects on brain development that post traumatic stress disorder or depression have on brain development.

Hunschofsky referred specifically to how a young person’s brain would be affected by watching a classmate “bleed out” in front of them after being shot. (Hunschofsky was mayor of Parkland in 2018 when the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting took place). 

“Which is more negative to brain development,” she asked. “Is it the medical marijuana or is it the fact that they witnessed their friend be shot to death and bleeding out next to them in the classroom?”

“This is where benefit/risk becomes really important to understand,” Winterstein responded, adding, “There is no drug on this planet that doesn’t come without side effects.”

‘Emergency basis’

Rep. Black later asked whether, if studies show harm from medical cannabis use, would Winterstein be prepared to react “on an emergency basis” to any “alarming findings from that data” and not wait to bring that information back to state lawmakers, even if they weren’t scheduled to meet in a regular legislative session.

Winterstein said she likely could come before legislators “within a few months” if published health reports required immediate action.

The presentation included information on medical marijuana patients who suffered from “adverse events,” who represented fewer than 1% (0.08%), with 96% of those reports rated as medically nonserious and 56% mild in severity. And 95% of those reports were submitted by just five doctors around the state, leading Winterstein to speculate that the variation in reporting suggested a high probability of underreporting.

The Legislature created the Consortium for Medical Marijuana Outcomes Research in 2019 to “conduct, disseminate and support rigorous scientific research on the clinical outcomes of medical marijuana use.” It’s housed on the University of Florida campus and includes researchers from 10 universities in the state of Florida.