Joe Redner of Tampa, Florida, was given the green light by a Tallahassee judge this week to grow his own marijuana to treat cancer.
Redner, 77, has made a fortune as a strip club owner and was given the “OK” from Leon County Circuit Judge Karen Gievers to grow his own pot.
Currently Florida prohibits medical-marijuana operators from selling whole plants or flowers.
According to court documents, Redner’s doctor has ordered a juicing treatment for him that uses live marijuana plants to stop the relapse of stage 4 lung cancer.
“The Constitution says what it says, and the judge recognized what I’ve been saying all along: The Department of Health and the Legislature can’t take away the rights that the Constitution gives you,” Redner stated.
The judge wrote, “Nothing in the amendment authorizes the Department of Health (or any other part of Florida’s government) to ignore the rights of qualifying patients to access the medical marijuana treatment to which they are entitled under the Florida Constitution, or to exclude any method by which qualifying patients may take their medicine.”
“Until and unless the department stops violating its constitutional duty and adopts the mandated presumptive regulation, the evidence clearly demonstrates that Mr. Redner is entitled to follow the recommendations of his certified physician under Florida law, and to possess, grow, and use his own medical marijuana plants in a secure manner so he will have access to the medical marijuana to which he is entitled under the amendment,” Gievers also wrote.
The state has requested to block the judge’s decision.
