The Sunshine State’s finally launching an initiative for awarding cannabis cultivation licenses to improve the chances of people of color getting into the industry. The plan is for the program to start in March 2022.
The state’s Department of Health will accept applications between March 21st–25th, 2022. The lucky recipient will become a member of the Florida medical cannabis industry.
There are several requirements for obtaining the license. The applicant must have a company that’s already registered in Florida. Said business needs to have been in operation for at least five years. The business is also required to have a certificate of nursery issued by Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
The Long Wait for Cultivators
The initiative to award black farmers a license was originally announced in 2017. That’s when the state first passed the medical marijuana use act. Only now is the state putting its plan into practice.
Official lay the delay at the feet of external legal obstacles and ongoing lawsuits. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t do much for black farmers who have faced one restraint after another while trying to grow a business. During the struggle, they watched 22 currently active licensees build one of the country’s top profitable cannabis markets, estimated to be behind only California and Colorado. And none of the 22 businesses are black-owned or -operated.
Cost of Cannabis License Doubled
One notable aspect of the awarded license is fees. Applicants can expect double the price of original licensing. Whoever gets the license is going to need to cough up a non-refundable $146,000. That’s twice the average $60,000 fee from 2017.
Still, that six-figure price is cheaper than getting a business license from an existing Florida cannabis company. In those cases, prices are going as high as $50 million.
But even Nikki Fried, Commissioner of Agriculture, finds the six-figure fee odd. The gubernatorial candidate asked the state attorney general to check it out. Fried is also expected to request alleviated fees from the state. The goal is to assist black farmers who hope to get into the weed business without exuberant fees.
Things Change and Remain the Same…
There remains a variety of obstacles and discriminatory challenges for cultivators of color.
Fried said through the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ website, “The way that the state of Florida has handled the medical marijuana licensure process for Black farmers is completely unacceptable and discriminatory on its face. We should be leveling the playing field for Black farmers who have faced discrimination and other structural obstacles in the farming industry, not doubling their fees and creating additional regulatory burdens for them.”
In 2022, a single black cannabis farmer will get the license. But the governor’s office states it’s prepared to hand out 19 additional medical cannabis licenses in the future. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis promises to prioritize minimizing the hardships black medical cannabis farmers face.
We’ve waited four long years. Let’s hope there aren’t many more years of inequality ahead of us.
