By Lois Thomson
Newly re-elected Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has appointed Christopher Phillip Kimball to be the new director of the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU). Kimball’s predecessor, Chris Ferguson, ran the state’s medical cannabis program for the previous three years, but has moved into a new role serving as administrator of statewide services for county health systems at the Department of Health (DOH).
Kimball is facing a number of challenges as he steps into his new position. For one, the state’s marijuana industry currently has 22 licensed operators. Back in 2014, the Florida Legislature passed a bill permitting a limited number of patients to receive low Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products, and the original 22 licensees were part of the initial group that applied after the bill passed.
Then in 2016, voters passed a constitutional amendment that allowed greater legalization of medical marijuana in the state. Following that, in 2017, a law required the DOH to issue new licenses to correspond with the increase in the number of new patients. However, with more than 750,000 patients in Florida now authorized to use medical marijuana – a number that is continuing to grow – at least 22 more licenses need to be issued to keep pace with the demand.
A recent budget request by the DOH expects that eight licenses for medical marijuana treatment centers will be awarded by June 2024, and one of Kimball’s responsibilities will be issuing those licenses. The state is anticipating the number of qualified medical marijuana patients to jump to more than one million patients by that time. In addition to the centers – and in an effort to keep up with the demand for medical marijuana – the DOH foresees the need for an additional 31 full-time employees to work in OMMU’s headquarters in Tallahassee, as well as in regional offices expected to open in the future.
Immediately prior to serving in this new position, Kimball had been a health care policy advisor for the state, and before that was working as an assistant attorney general in the office of Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. He also has more than two decades of experience in the Navy, including serving nearly 14 years in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. Kimball earned his bachelor’s degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his J.D. from Albany Law School. He is admitted to the Florida Bar.
