{"id":186981,"date":"2026-03-11T09:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/186981\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T09:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:10:16","slug":"veterans-meet-at-fl-capitol-to-advocate-for-medical-marijuana-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/186981\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans meet at FL Capitol to advocate for medical marijuana rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; Veterans advocated at the Capitol to protect their marijuana rights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">They are in support of a senate bill that would reduce fees for the renewal of veteran\u2019s cards in the state medical marijuana program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The bill would cut the costs for honorably discharged veterans about 80 percent, lowering the cost to roughly $15.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Veterans say that cannabis helps with symptoms of chronic pain and PTSD.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to a 2018 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hsrd.research.va.gov\/publications\/forum\/spring20\/default.cfm?ForumMenu=spring20-5\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.hsrd.research.va.gov\/publications\/forum\/spring20\/default.cfm?ForumMenu=spring20-5\">study <\/a>it was found that veterans used medical marijuana more than double that of the general population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tanya Bailey, former Army veteran and founder of GIGreen, spoke about the legal and safety risks that come when veterans are unable to access medical marijuana.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe want safe legal access, but because we don\u2019t have a choice a lot of veterans end up on the street, and there are too many dangers. There\u2019s fentanyl in cannabis now, we have to be safe and this is how we keep our veterans safe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">If passed, this would be the first state mandated medical marijuana program for veterans in the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The bill is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; Veterans advocated at the Capitol to protect their marijuana rights. They are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[32285,40882,87811,10498,23767,87812,232,234,233,3393],"class_list":["post-186981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-cannabis","tag-curaleaf","tag-gigreen","tag-medical-marijuana","tag-ptsd","tag-releaf-clinic","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}