Joe Redner is suing the Florida Department of Health so that he can grow his own cannabis plants. Redner is a 77-year-old, strip club entrepreneur and is currently fighting stage-4 lung cancer. Redner is a registered medical marijuana patient in Florida and uses cannabis products to treat his stage four lung cancer but now wants the right to grow his own plants. 

"This is a health issue as far as I'm concerned," said Redner, owner of the Mons Venus strip club in Tampa, during a phone interview with the Tampa Bay Times on Monday. "I've used the constitution as grounds to battle arrests in the past and I've gotten those arrests thrown out. It's pretty clear to me that the constitution gives me the right to challenge this. The state is not reading the amendment, they're not going by what it says."

Florida's Amendment 2 (passed with 77% of the vote) expanded medical cannabis from just the terminally ill, to include cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, and a few others. It has been decriminalized in Orlando for recreational use but elsewhere, cannabis is still very illegal. 

"I want to grow plants — plural. Twenty of them," he said. "I'm doing research right now and I want to be able to use it in juicing. To be effective enough, I need to grow 20 plants."

Redner is challenging the state's department of health and the current rules for medical patients by suing for declaratory judgement. Redner's argument is based on how the constitution defines marijuana and that the definition includes "all parts of the plant" and therefore he has the right to grow his own cannabis. 

Render also says he want's to grow his own plants because he has no idea what is in the plants he is buying from state licensed growers and distributors.

"I don't know if they're using pesticides or doing what's good for the plant," he said. "I'm a raw vegan. I am very careful about what I put into my body. And the amendment gives me the right to that."

There are currently 7 licensed companies that grow, manufacture, and distribute medical cannabis in the state; a number that will grow to 17 by the end of the year, thanks to some last minute legislation during a special session in Tallahassee. 

Despite the overwhelming support by the public for medical cannabis, legislators have struggled to come up with rules to regulate the new industry that is projected to become a $1 billion industry in Florida in the coming years.

Bryce Sampson

A caffeine dependent life form.