Load up. Buckle your seatbelts and hang on for the ride. For this Throwback Thursday, we will be traveling back in time. One year ago, today. November 2, 2016.
In the final months of 2016, as the election wound down, Florida was embroiled in seething debate. The question was, “should the medicinal properties of Marijuana be harnessed legally?”
The Pharmaceutical industry was against it. The "Ray of Hope for Florida" was very much for it. The Ray’s founder Peyton Moseley, and his wife founded the organization to advocate the legalization of medical Marijuana to treat epileptic seizures in children.
To this end, through Ray, Moseley purchased the patient rights to a low-potency strain of marijuana called Charlotte's Web. Pensacola attorney Fred Levin and Levins law partner both invested heavily in the venture.
Moseley's efforts were prompted by his daughter, RayAnne Moseley's diagnosis of intractable epilepsy, which causes deadly seizures that can be treated with Charlotte's Web.
One year later, Pensacola has opened its first dispensary. People are relocating here from other areas of the country for the warm air, mild climate and ease of getting Medical Marijuana.
So far 33,461 patients have been approved for cards that allow them to pick up their Medical Marijuana up at that local dispensary. Trulieve, who runs the Pensacola Dispensary, stated their most popular distribution method it through a low THC juice that can be inhaled through a standard vape.
Kenneth Cote, a retired Real Estate broker from Texas, bought two standard vapes as a method of consumption. Cote moved to Gulf Breeze in April to take advantage of the easy access to Medical Marijuana.
“I have chronic back pain, but I can’t take opioids,” Cote said. Cote and other Medical Marijuana users are now trying to get the legislature to relax the laws even more. Things like lowering the cost, and allowing the treatment to be billed to insurance companies, just like other pain meds.
The Graffiti Bridge has been used a platform for proponents of legalizations of Medical Marijuana. In retrospect, it has been an exciting year to watch the progress of this cutting-edge treatment.
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