Most of us who attend USF St. Petersburg and regularly hang out in downtown have been approached by the curly-haired, glossy-eyed kid with a skateboard in one hand and a petition to legalize marijuana in other. For a stoner, he’s quite persistent. And considering the nearly 1 million signatures that Florida petitioners have collected, he’s no rarity.
In a Tampa Bay Times story published on Friday, Jan. 3, the campaign director for United for Care, the organization spearheading the movement, said close to 900,000 signatures had been collected. He estimated the campaign would reach 1 million by early this week. The Times reports that Pinellas County alone has received 72,728 petitions since August.
Though a proposed constitutional amendment in Florida needs only 683,149 valid voter signatures to be placed on the November ballot, the medical marijuana campaign hopes to collect at least 1,050,000 to counter the rejection rate. According to the Times piece, rejection rates are running around 28 to 29 percent for reasons ranging from signers not being registered to vote to illegible handwriting. The rate is considered typical of referendum drives like this one.
Election officials have until Feb. 1 to verify petitions and get a final count. Since some petitions can take up to 30 days to verify, problematic signatures submitted more recently may not get counted. Regardless, United for Care plans to petition for at least one more week before evaluating numbers. So, if you’ve managed to evade the curly-haired stoner kid thus far, there’s still time. Not that we’re trying to sway you one way or the other.
If the campaign ends up collecting enough signatures and the vote isn’t shot down by the Florida Supreme Court or Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s one-woman anti-weed action committee, it seems to have a decent chance. According to The Daily Chronic, recent polls found 82 percent of Florida voters are in favor of legalizing medical marijuana. Florida law requires a 60 percent vote to pass a constitutional amendment.
In legalizing medical marijuana, Florida would join 20 states and Washington D.C. For Bondi, the problem does not seem to be the legalization itself, but the “leniency” for getting a prescription. According to her, Florida’s law would make it “one of the most lenient medical-marijuana states, allowing use for limitless ‘other conditions’ specified by any physician.”
Florida’s proposed amendment would allow marijuana to be prescribed outrightly for cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, hepatitis C, ALS, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. However, the loophole is found in the clause, “other conditions for which a physician believes that medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.”
PolitiFact Florida analyzed Bondi’s claim that Florida’s policy would be more lenient than those of other states. Because the proposal would allow doctors to make recommendations for marijuana use without getting approval from a designated state agency, PolitiFact declared Bondi’s claim “mostly true.”
Even so, does the leniency of a medical marijuana law really matter? Florida’s weed smokers are obviously not deterred by the law as it stands. If medical marijuana is too hard to get a prescription for, no one is going to bother. If it remains easier to get an eighth from your sixteen-year-old neighbor than from a specialized pharmacy, you’re probably going to continue hitting up Jimmy. And then he’ll profit, not the state.
So, in looking at the reasons to legalize medical marijuana, perhaps we should consider the people who will actually be using it for medical purposes. The patients of chronic diseases, who would benefit from a high more than the rest of us, should be at the heart of this campaign. The only new smokers the legalization of medical marijuana will create are those who need it medically. And if your common stoner finds a way to get piece of paper that allows him or her to take part, then so be it.
It’s not too late: Signatures to legalize medical marijuana will be accepted till the end of this week or later. Petitions can be downloaded on unitedforcare.org. The Amsterdam in downtown St. Petersburg will also have petitions ready at it’s “Legalize It” party on Saturday, Jan. 11. The event also features live music by local talents. More info here.
