In West Virginia, a new law includes a provision that requires regulators to encourage minority-owned business owners to apply for growing licenses. (Photo by Heath Korvola/ Digital Vision/Getty Images)

In some states that have legalized marijuana, officials are trying to entice nonwhite citizens to join the cannabis industry with breaks aimed at making up for the toll unequal drug enforcement has taken on Black and brown communities.

So far, the booming industry has overwhelmingly line the pockets of white cannabis sellers.

Orlando’s first licensed medical-marijuana dispensary is set to open in Orlando on Friday.

Winter Garden-based Knox Medical was founded by Jose Hidalgo, CEO, and Bruce Knox, COO.

The dispensary will serve patients registered with the Compassionate Use Registry.

Knox Medical won a competition in 2015 to be Central Florida’s first facility to grow and dispense medical marijuana.

Andre Shavers was sentenced to five years on felony probation after authorities burst into the house where he was living in one of Oakland's most heavily policed neighborhoods and found a quarter ounce of marijuana.

After the 2007 raid, Shavers couldn't leave the state without permission. He was subject to police searches at any time. He walked to the corner store one night for maple syrup and came back in a police car. Officers wanted to search his home again.

All the while, cannabis storefronts flourished elsewhere in a state where medical marijuana was authorized in 1996.

Florida health officials are taking the very earliest steps toward rolling out rules to let patients use medical marijuana after state lawmakers failed to resolve the issue during the final hours of their session earlier this month.

The Department of Health on Thursday published a notice outlining special procedures for them to implement Amendment 2, which passed with 71 percent of the vote last November and allows patients with a list of conditions including HIV/AIDS, cancer and PTSD to access medical cannabis.

DOH faces a quickly approaching deadline of July 3 to write the rules governing what could within a few years be a $1 billion medical marijuana industry.

A Canadian-backed firm will take over management of Chestnut Hill Tree Farm, one of Florida's seven medical marijuana operators, the companies announced Wednesday.

The deal involving Aphria Inc., a marijuana grower and processor based in Ontario, and Chestnut Hill comes on the verge of a massive expansion of Florida's medical-marijuana market, sparked by a November constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical pot.

Under the agreement, DFMMJ Investment LLC —- an entity wholly owned by Liberty Health Sciences, whose major investor is Aphria —- will “exclusively manage and operate Chestnut's cultivation, processing and dispensing of medical cannabis to patients” throughout Florida, according to an announcement released by the companies Wednesday.

Tampa Bay is home to a new revolution. Gardening without soil. Not even sand, gravel or liquid.

We’re talking about growing plants out of thin air.

It’s called Aeroponics. Yes, it been around for a long time, but a local company in St. Petersburg has mastered growing cannibals using the technique.

“Growing the plants 10 percent faster,” says Doug Fyvolent with Solaridy.

The company uses a 10-foot-tall “CropTower”, which allows you to grow up, not out.

They got the idea from NASA and made It better. Better to grow cannabis that is.

Doug Fyvolent is one of the masterminds of Solaridy. He's been researching the cannabis industry for a while and found that space was a big issue for growers.

The State Department of Health sent a cease and desist order to the owners of the North Florida based Trulieve, one of seven licensed marijuana growers in the state.

The letter demands they stop selling their “Entourage” product, which contains smokable marijuana in a mesh container. The leaf product is sold for use in vaporizers, which are legal under current law, but can be removed and smoked.

Confusion over what voters approved and current law has some saying lawmakers need to head back to the Capitol for a special session.

The Medical Marijuana Business Association says if legislators had passed guidelines for marijuana this session there would be less confusion for growers and the public.

One Florida retailer is selling buds for vaporizer use only - but those same flowers could just as easily be rolled up and smoked.

Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran has joined the growing number of those calling for a special legislative session to finalize rules for implementing the state’s medical marijuana amendment.

Corcoran said Wednesday that discussions have started, and he would like to have it as soon as possible. If a special session isn’t held, the Department of Health would need to come up with rules for Amendment 2 by July 3 and have them implemented by October.

“To just leave it to bureaucrats sitting over at the Department of Health I think would be a gross injustice,” he said during an interview on Tallahassee radio station WFLA-FM.