As Florida legalization campaigns raise major funds for their 2020 push, cannabis giants like Acreage Holdings and Harvest Health and Recreation are lobbying in the state.
They join a long list of cannabis companies that are already lobbying in the state, where both industry and advocacy legalization efforts are underway. (Read Cannabis Wire’s coverage of campaign contributions to Florida’s efforts.)
Harvest acquired a medical cannabis licensee in the state in late 2018, San Felasco Nurseries, and Acreage acquired Nature’s Way Nursery of Miami in January 2019.
Other big names that are not new entrants to Florida’s lobbying scene but have continued lobbying in 2019 include Surterra Holdings, PharmaCann LLC (in-process acquisition by MedMen), Curaleaf, and GW Pharmaceuticals’ U.S. subsidiary, Greenwich Biosciences.
The state’s residents voted to legalize medical cannabis in 2016 through a ballot measure. And two groups are now pushing adult-use legalization efforts; one is backed by cannabis advocacy group NORML, and the other by cannabis companies such as MedMen and Surterra.
Southern Strategy Group, a multi-state lobbying firm, registered in March to lobby on behalf of Acreage Holdings, according to lobbying disclosures. Harvest meanwhile hired McGuireWoods Consulting, a national lobbying firm, whose lobbyists also registered in March.
The full list of cannabis-related companies registered to lobby in Florida in 2019:
Acreage Holdings
AltMed LLC
Cannalysis
CannaRx LLC
Cansortium Holdings LLC
Curaleaf Florida, LLC
Florida Hemp Industries Association
Greenwich Biosciences, Inc.
Harvest Health & Recreation
Hemp Industries Association of Florida
iAnthus Capital Holdings, Inc.
Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida, Inc.
PharmaCann LLC
Surterra Holdings Inc.
Surterra Holdings LLC
The Pharm, LLC
U.S. Hemp Roundtable
U.S. Cannabis Pharmaceutical Research and Development LLC
Weedmaps
