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Reporter Debrief: Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in SWFL

Rachel Iacovone
/
WGCU
Cannabis products on display at the Curaleaf medical marijuana dispensary in Fort Myers.

Lee County’s second medical marijuana dispensary opened yesterday.

In the 16 months since Amendment 2 passed in Florida, a company called Curaleaf has opened five dispensaries in the state.

 

WGCU's Rachel Iacovone took a tour of the new Fort Myers facility Tuesday. She joins Gulf Coast Live with a report on what’s available and how patients are accessing these products – ranging from capsules to vaporizer pens to oils.

 

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.