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Florida medical marijuana business chills out: What the numbers tell us

barneyelias0
Oct 17, 2025
3 min read

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October 17, 2025

Florida's medical marijuana patient growth has slowed to 3% in the last two years after years of double-digit increases.

The amount of smokable medical marijuana dispensed nearly tripled between 2020 and last year.
Florida now has the largest medical marijuana market in the U.S., with about 4% of its population registered as patients.

A surge in the number of Florida marijuana patients after the 2019 legalization of smokable medical marijuana has subsided, according to a new report from the state's Office of Medical Marijuana Use.

Bobbie Smith, the OMMU director, told the Health Professions and Programs Subcommittee on Oct. 15 that after recording three straight years of double-digit growth, the increase in new qualified patients the past two years has been 3%.

“Obviously, we’ve got a couple months left in 2025 but we’re again seeing a 3% increase in the number of people with active qualified patients,” Smith said.

A Florida resident can qualify for the medical marijuana registry with a physician's diagnosis of one or more of over 70 diseases, including cancer and Parkinson's, and ailments such as nausea or irritable bowel syndrome.

Smith walked lawmakers through details in the Florida Department of Health’s 2025 Office of Medical Marijuana Use Program Update. The report shows the number of people with valid medical marijuana registry identification cards more than doubled from 459,000 in 2020 to about 925,000 today.

The surge in patients coincided with a nearly tripling of the amount of smokable medical marijuana dispensed, from 2.7 million ounces in 2020 to more than 6.6 million ounces last year.

The use and possession of marijuana is illegal under federal law, but 24 states allow possession of the plant, and 40 states permit its use as medicine. Amendment 2 in 2016 legalized medical marijuana in Florida for patients with qualifying conditions.

Florida more than doubled the number of registered medical marijuana users and the amount of marijuana products dispensed in the five years after the Legislature, at the urging of Gov. Ron DeSantis, legalized the use of smokable marijuana.

Two weeks after taking office in 2019, speaking to reporters in Winter Park with Orlando attorney John Morgan and former Congressman Matt Gaetz at his side, DeSantis told legislators to change the law, and that he was dropping the state appeal of a court decision declaring the ban on smokable marijuana unconstitutional.

"I want people to have their suffering relieved," said DeSantis at the time, adding he was opposed to recreational use of marijuana.

The latest medical marijuana numbers were released while the Smart & Safe political committee works to secure a 2026 ballot space for an initiative to legalize marijuana use for adults 21 and older.

DeSantis led the opposition to last year’s proposed constitutional amendment from the group. Money funneled through the DeSantis-backed Hope Florida Foundation reportedly was used to defeat the measure and is the subject of a Leon County grand jury.

On Oct. 11, DeSantis told the Pennsylvania Family Institute that “more people probably agreed” with the initiative but argued it was “morally right” to fight to defeat it.

Meanwhile, Florida has grown to be the most lucrative medical marijuana market in the nation with more registered patients than any other state – about 4% of the total population.