The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments today regarding language of a proposed ballot referendum that would allow voters to decide if the use of medical marijuana should be legal in the Sunshine State. While the justices’ may not render a decision for several weeks, the debate rages on.
State Attorney General Pam Bondi, along with Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford filed briefs to keep the medical marijuana initiative off next year’s ballot. Opponents argue the ballot language is misleading and leaves too many loopholes.
“We believe that it’s vague, that it’s limitless in scope,” said former Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Bob Alfonso. “What about a background check for caregivers? It doesn’t talk about that. It doesn’t talk about training for the caregivers. It doesn’t talk about how much marijuana a caregiver can possess or provide for their patient.”
The position of the campaign supporting the proposed ballot referendum, United for Care is that opposing medical marijuana legalization prevents the very ill from legally getting relief it can provide.
“The crux of our argument is there are thousands of Floridians who are suffering, today, yesterday, and tomorrow and medical marijuana can make a real difference in their quality of life and for a lot of people it’s their quality of life for their last few months or few years on the planet,” said Campaign Manager Ben Pollara. “So voters should have an opportunity to vote on something that they overwhelmingly support despite the fact the legislature has not allowed it to come up for a vote.”
Harvard School of Medicine Psychobiology Professor Dr. Bertha Madras has a different take on the issue altogether.
“The real question is, why are we using a ballot initiative to approve a medication?” said Madras. “The FDA has consistently not approved marijuana for medical purposes because it does not achieve the bar of the stringent scientific process that the FDA requires.”
A recent poll shows Floridians support the legalization of medical marijuana by a margin of 82% to 16%. If justices approve the ballot language, campaigners still need to have 700,000 verified petition signatures by February first. Pollara says they’ve garnered roughly 500,000 signatures so far, but less than half have been verified so far.
