Florida’s medical marijuana program enlists help for patient ID card production

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In an effort to get medical marijuana into consumer hands quicker, Florida’s health department has awarded a third-party contract to produce the state’s MMJ identification cards.

State regulators have fallen behind because of a flood of MMJ registrations over the past eight months.

The $7.9 million contract went to Jacksonville-based Veritec Solutions, a subsidiary of Intuition, according to Firstcoastnews.com.

Under the contract – which will be paid over a five-year period – Veritec will collect $4.19 per registry identification card for the first 199,999 cards it produces annually.

There were 50,775 registered patients in Florida as of Nov. 8, but the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use has printed just over 29,000 cards, according to the news outlet.

An average of 264 new patients per day are being added to the state’s MMJ registry, nearly triple the 90 patients who were being registered daily in March, Firstcoastnews.com reported.

Florida’s surgeon general, Celeste Philip, told the news outlet that the current level of patient registration is expected to stay the same for the next 30-60 days, which will result in wait times for cards of more than 90 days.

Philip added the state expects 300,000-500,000 patients to register within the next two years.