TALLAHASSEEE, Fla. — On the heels of a campaign steeped in her advocacy as a medical marijuana lobbyist, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is preparing to create a new position within her department: Director of Cannabis.

  • Nikki Fried to create 'Director of Cannabis' position under her new office
  • She has pledged to expand patient access to medical marijuana
  • Gov. DeSantis has suggested more conciliatory approach to implementing Amendment 1

While much of the state's medical marijuana regulatory apparatus resides in the Florida Department of Health — an agency controlled by the governor — Fried has pledged to use her new office to expand patient access to the drug.

"We need to make sure there (are) more growers out there, to make sure that now edibles are becoming available, that so many of our patients need to be able to adjust the actual medicine," Fried said in an interview before taking office last week.

Florida voters chose to legalize medical marijuana in 2016, passing Amendment 1 by a wide margin. Since then, however, the amendment's implementation has been stymied by legal challenges and bureaucratic delays that critics charge were intentional foot-dragging by former Gov. Rick Scott's administration.

Scott's successor, Gov. Ron DeSantis, has suggested a more conciliatory approach to implementation under his leadership. Medical marijuana advocates believe the new administration will drop Scott's legal challenges, including one seeking to overturn a court ruling that invalidated the state's ban on smokeable cannabis.

Should such an approach fail to materialize, however, the director of cannabis — effectively a medical marijuana czar reporting to Fried, the state's sole statewide elected Democrat — would be empowered to get involved.

"You're going to need someone to kind of assess what's going on out there, identify the developments at the Department of Health, work collaboratively with all those folks, and make sure she has all the information she needs, and all the policy direction she wants, and is pushing this forward," said Jeff Sharkey of the Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida, a leading industry lobbying outfit.