I own one of the largest hemp manufacturing companies in the United States and in 2022, I moved our business from California to Florida. I have over 200 employees in the Orlando area, we’re on track to make about $120 million in revenue this year, and we are so happy to call Florida our home.
Unlike California, Florida has regulated my industry well — making sure that bad actors stay out of the market, while allowing consumers to confidently purchase the products they need for pain relief and various other uses. Unfortunately, this regulatory certainty is in grave danger with the passage of SB 1698. This disastrous legislation would destroy the hemp industry in Florida, cause me to move my operation out of state, cost my employees their jobs, and wipe out the $200 million economic impact my businesses have in Florida.
I’m sure of these consequences because I’ve seen it happen first-hand in California.
I come from the largest marijuana market in the country, but the black market in California cannabis has pushed hemp companies like ours out of competition. Most of the intended economic impact and tax revenue predicted before legalization has never succeeded for Californians. If this hemp bill is signed into law, Florida will see the same grim future. The hemp industry here in Florida provides a great economic hedge against the disaster seen in California and offers a real solution for so many cancer patients, veterans dealing with PTSD, and people combatting the growing epidemic of opioid abuse, among many other critical uses.
After seeing the devastation of bad legislation in the hemp market in California, I knew we needed to relocate. We considered other states, but Gov. Ron DeSantis’ positive messages of the economic and regulatory environment in the free state of Florida were impossible to ignore. I have invested over $15 million into my operation here. I was happy to bring 40 employees and their families with me from California, and even more glad to hire, train, and invest in over 200 employees in our community. We love the homes we bought here in Florida, the schools our kids attend, and all the benefits of living and working in such a great state.
Our company has one other thing to be proud of, too. By design, 70% of our workforce is made up of second-chance employees. We recruit out of nonprofit organizations, halfway houses, and rehabilitation centers here and have witnessed Floridians once faced with the choice of going back to prison, staying on the streets, or continuing to live in the grips of addiction turn their lives around. They have told me personally that this job gave them hope and a new outlook on life. After two years, many of those employees now are in management positions, clean and sober, and off parole.
This legislation will change all of that. If this bill gets signed, those jobs will be lost, the economic impact will disappear, our 80,000-square-foot warehouse space will go back to being as vacant as it was when I found it, and my investment in my company will be for nothing. I traveled to Tallahassee with others from my industry to speak with legislators and address committees — anything I could do to educate our representatives about the dire impacts of this bill.
I worry that medicinal marijuana companies are serving as a barricade against all our efforts to warn legislators that what happened in California will happen here. Without a hemp industry, consumers will turn to something worse to get the relief they desperately need.
I came to Florida because I believed it was different from California, I hope it stays that way.
Ernie Ciaccio is an owner, and the acting vice president of Honest PP&D, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of hemp products. Ciaccio’s companies have over 300 employees nationwide, 200+ of which reside in the Orlando area.
![Growing up in rural Appalachia, I was taught America stood for its freedom – so long as you weren’t harming another person, you could do whatever you want, and when you own a piece of American land, you can use it however you want. Those ideals, particularly the latter, shaped American cities into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Neighborhoods evolved with a diverse mix of residential and commercial spaces seamlessly integrated into the urban fabric. Bustling streets with trolleys, bicycles, and cars shared the public space with street vendors. That changed in the mid-20th century after the Supreme Court validated […]](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2016/10/28/JP2SEXJOVFE3XDOP7G5FG5XXHA.jpg?w=535 "Growing up in rural Appalachia, I was taught America stood for its freedom – so long as you weren’t harming another person, you could do whatever you want, and when you own a piece of American land, you can use it however you want. Those ideals, particularly the latter, shaped American cities into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Neighborhoods evolved with a diverse mix of residential and commercial spaces seamlessly integrated into the urban fabric. Bustling streets with trolleys, bicycles, and cars shared the public space with street vendors. That changed in the mid-20th century after the Supreme Court validated […]")
