After months of being sidelined, a bill to legalize full-strength medical marijuana for terminally ill patients resurfaced in the Florida House Monday with a rewrite that restores the number of eligible growers to five.

The bill, HB 307, was approved by the House Appropriations Subcommittee by a 9-2 vote, leaving it one more stop before getting to the full House. If approved, it will allow terminally ill Floridians who have been diagnosed with less than one year to live to have legal access to marijuana grown by the five authorized distributors.

The bill, and its companion SB 460, is an expansion of the "Right to Try" law passed last year which allows terminally ill patients to have access to experimental drugs not approved for general use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Senate bill is ready for a vote of the full Senate.

Under the state's Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014, the Department of Health in November awarded licenses to five nurseries that have been in business for at least 30 years and have grow a minimum of 400,000 plants. They will be allowed to grow, process and dispense marijuana low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabidiol, or CBD. Authorized patients who suffer from seizures, severe muscle spasms or cancer are eligible to receive low-THC cannabis, commonly known as "Charlotte's Web."

The House bill to allow the growers to also cultivate full-strength cannabis is sponsored by Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach and Katie Edwards, D-Plantation.

The measure is driven by both compassion and economics. It allows the existing five growers to expand their market -- and profitability -- by allowing them to sell all strains of marijuana to patients whom two doctors have determined have only a year to live. It also gives patients legal access to marijuana in all forms for palliative use.

"If you have a year left to live you're going to try whatever you think may be helpful,'' said Rep. Shawn Harrison, R-Tampa, who supported the bill. "Frankly, you're not going to care whether it's legal or not."

Photo: Cathy Jordon, who suffers from ALS, urges the committee Monday to keep the number of medical marijuana dispensaries at 20.