Last November’s narrow defeat of Amendment 3 dashed cannabis fans’ hopes of Florida establishing a market for recreational adult personal use, and the Legislature’s efforts to inhibit further ballot initiatives and restrict hemp-derived intoxicants like Delta-9 means that a medical marijuana card may be your only way to get legal weed in the Sunshine State for the foreseeable future.
That fact has fueled a recent re-ignition of interest in Florida’s MMJ program, and Leafwell clinic has partnered with Insa and other area dispensaries to fan those flames with a series of in-person events, offering free evaluations for medical cards (not counting the $75 state fee) for both lapsed patients and canna-curious newcomers.
I attended their first-ever pop-up clinic in Orlando at the Celeste Hotel near UCF — which is hosting another on Wednesday, April 9, from 3-8 p.m. — and conducted the following Q&A with Insa CEO/co-founder Pete Gallagher and Leafwell event partnership manager Corey Lyons, while nearly 400 attendees were getting approved for their gratis ganja recommendations (valid for four months and 20 days, natch).
How did you enter the cannabis industry?
Gallagher: Prior to this, I was in the investment management business. My childhood friend Pat Gottschlicht, we grew up together; he went a different path in life, much more entrepreneurial. We kept in touch over the years [and] at some point, we just got the idea it’d be fun to start a company together. I really didn’t know much about cannabis, and didn’t really even know it was an industry. In 2013 I’d read an article in the New York Times about the legalization of cannabis in Colorado, and we met a gentleman when we were on vacation together traveling [who] was from Denver.
… It turned out he owned a number of dispensaries in Colorado and a grow, and I spent the balance of the vacation just quizzing him about cannabis more out of a personal curiosity.
He was the one that informed us that it had just been legalized in Massachusetts, [and] that’s what started the journey in this industry, with Pat and I. We founded the company officially in 2013; we started in Massachusetts, then expanded into Pennsylvania, then Florida, Connecticut and Ohio. Our footprint in Florida right now is about 10 stores in the North Central Florida region.
What defines the Insa brand?
Gallagher: We really just try to distinguish ourselves on quality. And it’s really a craft product that we try to create. We put a lot of care and invest a lot into the products. It’s a state of the art facility, indoor grow. We invest a lot in the processes to ensure that it’s the highest quality coming out of there.
The packaging looks like a tuna fish can. We chose that because we think it best preserves the quality of the cannabis, and it really preserves the aroma, so when you peel back that can it really just hits you. It’s important to infuse it with about 90 percent nitrogen, and that’ll preserve the quality of the cannabis and the terpenes for about two years. There’s a lot of care and investment that we put into the entire process to make sure that we deliver the highest quality products to patients and consumers.
What’s your favorite Insa product?
Gallagher: I’m not a Florida resident, but I’m a patient in Massachusetts and a recreational consumer. I’m partial to flower, and I really like our edibles. Our chocolates are fantastic, and we’ve just come out with some new 1:1:1: [THC:CBD:CBN] sleep gummies, which are fantastic.
How has the response been to Leafwell’s free cannabis card clinics?
Lyons: We had over 400 people registered for this pop-up, and what we saw today was really exciting. A lot of people brought their friends, they brought their family, they brought additional people to get in. We were able to fit most of our patients into the blocks that we had — if not, we scheduled them for an open block that we had later in the day, but everybody that came to us was seen by a doctor today or was waiting to be seen.
What is the demographic of Orlando’s cannabis patients?
Lyons: The state of Florida’s demographic skews usually above 50-55, but I think that’s just really our state population. We’ve seen a large amount of young patients coming in from a college demographic. For us, we looked at our demographics for this event, and it skewed more than 50 percent under 50. So we’re seeing a much younger [demographic], and then there was a large block of people 18 to 30.
I think with Amendment 3 not passing, more people are looking for legal ways to be a consumer, and it’s very beneficial to the younger demographic.
How is Insa moving past the failure of Amendment 3?
Gallagher: We were an investor in Safe & Smart Florida, a much smaller investor than Trulieve, but obviously we felt it was important to support the initiative. Unfortunately, it didn’t pass, but we have a robust medical market here, and hopefully there’s another opportunity to legalize it in the future.
Sixty percent is a tall hurdle [and] there’s a lot of misperceptions around cannabis, even still. I think it requires a lot of education. I think we’ve learned a lot as an industry, and if there’s another opportunity, hopefully we can educate people on why it’s important, and the value of adult-use cannabis.
What’s your position on legalizing home-grown cannabis?
Gallagher: I personally don’t have a problem with home grows, for hobbyists and whatnot that want to try it. It’s a natural curiosity, and I support that. In Massachusetts and other recreational markets, the home grow exists and co-exists with the adult use market.
I think the new ballot language that came up is now allowing a home grow, so if that was the big sticking point for voters, hopefully if it gets that opportunity on the ballot in the future, it will pass. … Any initiative to legalize cannabis in Florida, we support.
*This article was originally published 4/9/2025 by Orlando Weekly.
