More Florida Doctors Register to Prescribe Medical Cannabis

Florida may have been slow to legalize medical cannabis, but now the state is seeing an increase in doctors registering to prescribe medical cannabis to patients.

According to Florida Health’s list of approved physicians, the number of doctors prescribing cannabis has increased to 1,220 physicians. This is a huge boon for the Floridian cannabis industry, considering that the medical cannabis program had only 290 participating physicians signed up when medical expansion was first passed. With more physicians available to prescribe cannabis, patients will have more opportunities to get access to the medicine they need.

So far, many of the doctors who are legally allowed to prescribe are located in southern Florida. There are also 209 are practicing in Miami-Dade County, 118 are in Broward County, and 116 are currently located in Palm Beach County.

Forty-seven counties out of the 67 in the entire state have local doctors who can recommend cannabis. Four-hundred of them specialize in internal medicine, 243 are family doctors, and 134 are specialists in anesthesiology. Many of the doctors have more than one specialty, which assists in broadening these categories.

The number of patients has increased in Florida as well. Since the list of qualifying cannabis conditions was originally extended in the state, patient numbers rose to 31,501, which is much higher than the initial 16,760 patients who were registered. This has placed such a big strain on the state that officials are having trouble processing medical cards in a timely manner. While this can be frustrating for some of the patients in question, it also means that business is booming.

Florida has come a long way from the state that was reluctant to legalize medical cannabis. Now, Florida’s medical industry is thriving, and patients, doctors and hopeful recreational customers are looking towards a bright future.