Posted on 12/04/2019 8:19:17 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Two citizens campaigns to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida are headed in opposite directions, with one contending it’s close to getting on the 2020 ballot and the other saying it’s unlikely to get the needed signatures in time.
Make It Legal Florida, backed and financed by the medical marijuana industry, has gathered close to 600,000 signatures, chairman Nick Hansen said Tuesday. That would be more than 75% of the 766,200 needed to get on the ballot in November 2020, though only about 119,000 had been verified Tuesday.
But Karen Goldstein, vice-chair of Regulate Florida, which backs more sweeping legal marijuana laws said, “it appears we’re going to run out of time.” The group had about 92,000 verified signatures as of Tuesday.
Goldstein said her group is still collecting and submitting signatures, adding she still has “a couple thousand in my house. … But we’re not optimistic we’ll make the deadline.”
Campaigns used to have until August to gather the required number of signatures, but a change to the state constitution in 2005 moved the deadline up to Feb. 1. Elections offices are given 30 days to process, verify and potentially reject ballots, so the real deadline is Dec. 31.
“We’re not giving up.,” said Goldstein, who also serves as the deputy director of the pro-marijuana group NORML Florida. "We know we have a lot of grassroots support.”
That type of support, however, is no match for professional canvassers funded by large contributions from the major medical marijuana distributors.
Make It Legal Florida has raised more than $2.8 million as of Oct. 31, largely from medical marijuana companies MedMen and Parallel, formerly known as Surterra.
The group has spent about $2.7 million of that money, though Hansen said it’s continued to raise money at the same pace in November.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
DANG!
Don’t bogart those brownies, my friend. Pass them over to me.
From my time spent in both places, I am thinking Geogia would be more likely to actually pass such a measure were it on the ballot.
Stupid potheads.
They just want you stoned and easy to manage.
Why do you think they call it DOPE.
Don’t buy the suppositories, they’re hard to swallow and for all the good they do you. You might as well stick them up your butt.
Why bother? Florida seems to have issues with plenty of other drugs
Will all the annoying boomers who keep moving down to Cape Coma and Naples be for or against this?
Every now and then, the importance of strong funding and professional organization in politics is made clear. Otherwise, in most instances, the fog of political combat obscures the lesson.
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