Tallahassee Doctor Faces $10K Fine, Suspension & Ban Following Undercover Investigation

A Tallahassee physician is facing a permanent ban on recommending medical marijuana for patients, in addition to a five-year suspension of his medical license and a $10,000 fine following an investigation that included undercover agents posing as patients, CBS Miami writes.

What Happened?

Joseph Dorn, who has practiced in Florida for more than thirty years, allegedly violated the state law by failing to conduct physical examinations of investigators Brent Johnson, who posed as “Patient B.D.,” and Ben Lanier, who posed as “Patient O.G.”

The complaint filed against the physician, dating back to 2019 also accuses Dorn of employing a “trick or scheme” in the practice of medicine.

Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins, who held a hearing in Dorn’s case in October, is now weighing in on the recommended orders submitted last week by the Department of Health and Dorn’s lawyer, Ryan Andrews.

DOH's Accusations

According to the health officials, Dorn failed to “appropriately vet his patients” and follow a 2017 law requiring physicians to use specific procedures before determining patients are eligible for medical marijuana.

“Instead of recognizing this responsibility, the respondent (Dorn) used his designation as a qualified physician to liberally qualify patients to receive medical marijuana by only performing perfunctory consultations and ignoring many of the requirements imposed by the Legislature,” the agency’s lawyers wrote in their proposed recommended order.

Doctor Didn’t Do Anything Wrong

However, Andrews claims that the doctor did not do anything wrong. In his proposed recommended order, the lawyer wrote that “the only trick or scheme employed in this case was that of the petitioner (the agency), by intentionally sending B.D. and O.G. to Dr. Dorn to trick him into ordering medical marijuana for B.D. and O.G. based on their presentation of unlawful falsehoods concerning their qualifying conditions (i.e., PTSD and anxiety, inter alia).”

Furthermore, Dorn’s attorney argued that the agency didn’t offer any evidence to support its allegation that the physician failed to determine that the health benefits of marijuana outweighed the risks for O.G. and B.D.

It is “shocking” that the department does “not know what the health benefits or risks are of medical marijuana,” Andrews stressed, considering that the agency is "charged with regulating qualifying physicians and medical marijuana.”

Controversial Tactic

Andrews also wrote that the department employees “lied to Dr. Dorn about their conditions and were actively trying to be evasive and untruthful.”

The state agency’s “position is that because O.G. and B.D. were lying about their conditions, it was impossible for Dr. Dorn to have concluded that the benefits of medical marijuana outweighed the risks for O.G. and B.D., placing Dr. Dorn in a position of ‘heads I win tails you lose’ in favor of the health department,” Andrews argued.

Under the 2017 law, doctors must undergo training to be qualified by the state to order cannabis for patients. However, lying to doctors about certain conditions to obtain marijuana is considered a crime under the same law.

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