As Governor Ron DeSantis was attending inaugural events, lawyers for the state were trying to persuade a three-judge panel to uphold a ban against smoking marijuana.
“I think at the end of the day when people speak on these things, we want to implement their will. I don’t think that that’s been done fully," DeSantis said.
He was weighing in after a Tallahassee circuit judge agreed with a lawsuit filed by Orlando lawyer John Morgan. The lawsuit claims a 2017 law is unconstitutional because it doesn’t allow medical marijuana to be smoked. The state's stance is that the constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2016 does not explicitly allow smoking and there are other methods of consumption.
Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried supports allowing smokable marijuana and wants the governor to drop the state’s appeal.
“I think that so many of our patients are needing medical marijuana in all of its forms and that’s in it's purest form. And so who are we to be in the way of patient-to-doctor access, and so the patient is getting recommended to have the raw flower -- then that’s what they should be getting," said Fried.
When asked when he may make a decision about the state’s appeal, DeSantis said it’ll be soon. "We’ll have an action on that probably within a week or two.”
