Escambia County, FL Cannabis Regulations: Dispensary Zoning (2026)

Escambia County built its medical cannabis rules directly into the unincorporated county's Land Development Code rather than adopting a blanket moratorium. Sec. 3-1.4(j) states that Florida Statutes Sec. 381.986 (2018) and Florida Administrative Code Chapter 64-4 authorize a limited number of state-licensed dispensing organizations to cultivate, process and dispense medical cannabis, and that the intent of the county's provision is to establish the criteria for the location and permitting of facilities that dispense medical cannabis by state authorized dispensing organizations. The section applies only in the unincorporated areas of the county, since Pensacola and Century set their own rules inside city limits, and it is written narrowly: it can only be construed to allow dispensing by a state-approved dispensing organization for medical use, and the sale of cannabis or marijuana is otherwise prohibited countywide.

Zoning district use tables control where a dispensary can actually open. Medical marijuana dispensing facilities are listed as a permitted retail sales use in the Agricultural (Agr), Rural Mixed-Use (RMU), Low Density Mixed-Use (LDMU) and High Density Mixed-Use (HDMU) districts (Sec. 3-2.2(b)(2)a, 3-2.4(b)(2)f, 3-2.6(b)(2), 3-2.9(b)(2)). In the Agricultural district, a dispensing operation ancillary to cultivation or processing is separately permitted. Purely residential districts such as Low Density Residential and Medium Density Residential allow no retail sales at all, which forecloses dispensaries there. A dispensary must also hold state Department of Health approval as a dispensing organization before the county will treat it as an authorized use; opening without that state approval falls outside the ordinance's narrow allowance and is treated as a prohibited sale of cannabis.