- April 16, 2024
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The City Commissioners decided not take any action in regards to banning or fully allowing medical marijuana dispensing facilities in Ormond Beach, citing it’s unlikely one would even want to open within the city.
“This has been regulated to the detriment of the people,” City Commissioner Rob Littleton said. “They are not getting what they voted for.”
In last year’s election, 71% of Ormond Beach’s electorate voted in favor of Amendment 2 to legalize medical marijuana in the state of Florida. The amendment passed, but with it came regulations. Commissioners Rick Boehm and Littleton talked about the strict nature of those regulations during the city commission meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 15.
Boehm said this law is one of the most restrictive he’s ever seen and that state legislature has made it difficult for people to get what they voted for.
He went into detail about how the state only allows 10 licensed medical marijuana treatment centers — the state currently has 7. Each treatment center is allowed to have 25 dispensing facilities throughout the state. Florida was then broken down into five regions to ensure the dispensing facilities are divided equally among population.
Boehm said that is one of the factors making it unlikely Ormond Beach will see any dispensing facilities in town, seeing as it’s in the same region as Brevard, Orange, Polk and Pinellas County.
“The major population centers are gonna get them. There’s no reason for them to build in small cities."
Rick Boehm, City Commissioner, Zone 3
During the meeting, Commissioner Dwight Selby cited facts from a medical marijuana organization that said in order for dispensing facilities to be profitable, they need to be located in cities with a population greater than 67,000.
According to the 2016 U.S. Census, Ormond Beach has approximately 42,162.
“The major population centers are gonna get them,” Boehm said. “There’s no reason for them to build in small cities. There’s no reason to go to rural areas.”
Selby said he estimates there could be anywhere from 400-500 possible medical marijuana users in town, and that the people that voted for it during last year’s election were expecting it to be readily available in their area.
“These aren’t a bunch of 18-year-olds taking daddy’s car for a joyride and going to Taco Bell at 1:30 in the morning with a case of the munchies,” Littleton said. “These are serious and educated people.”
Boehm said there was a possibility the nearest medical marijuana dispensing facility could be as far as 50 miles from Ormond Beach. He also talked about how hard it would be for a person or their caregiver to apply for the license required to obtain medical marijuana. He said state legislature has done this on purpose and called the regulations a “designed scheme to make it extraordinarily difficult to get medical marijuana.”
Because of the discussion carried out, the city commissioners reached a consensus to not take any specific action at this time. If a medical marijuana dispensing center were to apply for a permit in Ormond Beach in the future, they would be subject to the same rules as a drug store.
“This has been regulated to the detriment of the people. They are not getting what they voted for.”
Rob Littleton, City Commissioner, Zone 4
“I actually would like to go out and ask to have them put one here, because I don’t think we’ll ever see one,” Boehm said.
