FLORIDA:  Medical marijuana hasn’t even been legalized yet, but already there’s a legal challenge over how licenses for growers might be doled out.

Two Florida plant nurseries have sued to replace a proposed lottery system with a more rigorous, merit-based approach.

The Department of Health’s Office of Compassionate Use proposed a lottery method of awarding grow licenses — one in each of five regions of the state — in July, after the low-THC Charlotte’s Web strain of marijuana was legalized in Florida. If Amendment 2 passes (get out and vote!) and more strains of marijuana become available for medical use, the lottery winners’ licenses could explode in value.

“The proposed rule fails to provide any method to evaluate eligible applicants, to determine whether an eligible applicant is superior, or to select the best applicant,” wrote attorneys for Miami-based Costa Farms, in a petition Monday to the Division of Administrative Hearings. “This ensures only that the luckiest eligible applicant, not best qualified eligible applicant, is approved.”