United For Care: Medical Marijuana Nears 2016 Florida Ballot, Gathered Over 666K Signatures
By Allison Nielsen, Sunshine State News // January 28, 2016
Less than 20,000 Signatures Still Needed
(SunshineStateNews.com) – An amendment to legalize medical marijuana is likely to make the 2016 ballot in Florida, according to the latest petition numbers from the Florida Division of Elections.
As of Monday, an amendment to legalize medical marijuana for those with “debilitating” medical conditions had gathered over 666,000 valid petition signatures, putting the campaign less than 20,000 signatures away from being placed back on the ballot this year.
Any proposed amendment needs to collect at least 683,000 validated petitions to be placed on the ballot.
This is the last week any amendments can be considered for this year’s vote.
People United for Medical Marijuana (United For Care), a pro-medical marijuana group largely led by uber attorney John Morgan, has shouldered the responsibility of collecting enough signatures to get the amendment on the ballot next year.
“I am confident we have turned in enough petitions to make the ballot by the deadline next week—and once we do, we are almost certainly going to be Amendment 2 again,” United for Care director Ben Pollara said.
United For Care’s constitutional amendment petition would allow for the medical use of marijuana by a qualifying patient or caregiver. It would also prohibit physicians from being subject to criminal or civil liabilities under Florida law for issuing a prescription for medical marijuana.
Medical marijuana would only be allowed for use for those with “debilitating” medical conditions which would include cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, and for other conditions which a physician feels using medical marijuana would outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.
That means the average Joe wouldn’t be able to go into a pharmacy and get a prescription unless it was approved by their doctor.
Amendments need to receive 60 percent of the vote in order to be made law in Florida.
This wouldn’t be the first time Floridians have seen medical marijuana put up for a vote. In 2014, United For Care ran the same campaign to legalize medical pot, fighting tooth and nail to pass the initiative, but the measure ultimately fell short by two points, and it was back to the drawing board for the group.
Ben Pollara said the reason the campaign didn’t get the necessary numbers to pass was due to a lack of funding and a negative publicity campaign by anti-Amendment 2 groups.
“They managed to overwhelm certain parts of the state with lies, and we simply didn’t have adequate funding to push back hard enough,” Pollara wrote in an email Monday.
In 2014, State Attorney General Pam Bondi fought hard against the proposed amendment, but Bondi has stayed relatively quiet on the measure this time around — so far.
As of April 2015, 23 states had legalized medical cannabis in the U.S. while seven other states had pending legislation to legalize the drug for medical use.
Marijuana is still considered illegal under federal law.
ABOUT SUNSHINE STATE NEWS
At Sunshine State News, we believe this is the right time to focus on the inextricable relationship between politics and business in Florida and how it affects the success of our state. To that end, we strive to cut through the jargon and speak in a fresh, no-nonsense way to an audience of lawmakers, lobbyists and strategists, to Florida’s job creators and economy protectors, in fact to all Floridians who expect their leaders to make common-sense decisions and set lofty, yet attainable, goals.
Sunshine State News fills a void – and that is our principal reason for being. We are the only news organization in Florida with an editorial board that believes free-market, less-government solutions will prove successful in addressing the problems challenging our state. Our news stories deal with facts, but we are more than happy to espouse our opinion in columns. We make it our job to tell the side of the stories that other outlets choose to ignore. We cover news statewide, putting the right amount of emphasis on untold stories and up-to-the-minute blogs, the ones that illuminate a rapidly changing economy, the clash of ideas and relationships at the state Capitol and political strategies playing out in all corners of Tallahassee and beyond. We aim to present our stories in a bright, attractive, reader-friendly package. And, we strive to avoid the stuffy conventions of traditional newspaper storytelling, instead writing compellingly in everyday language, using as much wit, personality and insight as we can muster.
Sunshine State News welcomes reader participation. In fact, we encourage it by calling for comments on each story and blog and by inviting letters to the editor and op-ed articles. Sunshine State News is always evolving, always adding features, looking for ways to make ourselves not just content, but a community for Floridians who care deeply about how and what our leaders are doing to improve our lives. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON SUNSHINE STATE NEWS
