The pro-medical marijuana group United for Care has passed a milestone in its effort to legalize the drug for certain Florida patients. The group has gathered 100,000 signed petitions.
If anyone is wondering what 100,000 petitions looks like, just ask United for Care campaign manager Ben Pollara.
“It looks like a lot of boxes and a lot of pieces of paper,” he says with a laugh.
Pollara’s group is trying for the second time to bring medical marijuana to Florida patients through a ballot initiative. In 2014 the push fell just short of Florida’s 60 percent threshold. To get a proposal on the ballot, organizations have to gather more than 680,000 verified signatures from at least half of the state’s counties.
This week Pollara’s group loaded their 100,000 petitions into boxes and sent them off to county election officials for verification.
“And the reason that number is significant is because in order to get reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court you need to submit 68,000 signatures of verified Florida voters,” Pollara says. “With the 100,000 we’ve sent, we’re confident 68,000 or more of those will be verified and we will trigger the review of the Supreme Court.”
Once the Supreme Court approves the amendment language, organizers can focus on gathering the remaining signatures, and preparing for the campaign. But even if every single signature gets verified, United for Care still has a lot of ground to cover before it makes it to the ballot.
Pollara says he isn’t worried.
“In 2013 our constitutional amendment and petition was not approved to be signed by a voter until I believe July 13,” Pollara explains, “Today is July 22, and we’ve already shipped over 100,000 signatures and we’re in the process of processing many, many more.”
The organization backed by personal injury lawyer John Morgan is hoping its luck will be at least three percentage points better during a presidential election cycle.
Copyright 2020 WFSU. To see more, visit WFSU. 9(MDAyMTYyMTU5MDEyOTc4NzE4ODNmYWEwYQ004))
