Florida: Medical Marijuana Backers Top 500k Signatures

[Robert Celt]

Facing a Feb. 1 deadline, supporters of a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana have topped 500,000 valid petition signatures submitted to the state.

As of Monday morning, the group "People United for Medical Marijuana" had submitted 523,168 valid signatures, according to the state Division of Elections website.

The group needs to meet a Feb. 1 deadline for submitting 683,149 signatures.

The Florida Supreme Court on Dec. 17 approved the wording of the proposed constitutional amendment, which would legalize medical marijuana for a wide range of patients.

People United for Medical Marijuana, which also is known as "United for Care," has steadily moved toward meeting the signature requirement.

As an example, it had submitted about 400,000 signatures as of Dec. 17. If the group meets the requirement, the proposal would be on the November ballot. A similar proposal narrowly failed to pass during the November 2014 elections.

News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Florida: Medical Marijuana Backers Top 500k Signatures
Author: Staff
Contact: Tampa Bay Business Journal
Photo Credit: Matthew Staver
Website: Tampa Bay Business Journal

 

[420 Warrior]

Maybe someone can answer me this...What decides just how many signatures are needed for these petitions in the first place, and why do they think they need so many? Is it simply based on population consensus alone?

Maybe "People United for Medical Marijuana" should do a door to door campaign to get the remaining 160,000 signatures they need?

One problem I can see is that this time of year, Florida's tourist destinations are virtually ghost towns and most places are closed down for the winter so it's a matter of getting the local population involved and making them aware of this legislation in order to get them signing the petition.

I could be that the commission had this planned for the winter months all along because they knew full well that local activity would be at a snails pace and that turn out would be reflected and affected by store closures and what not, because if this was going in from May through September, there would be a hotbed of activity going on down there and so it stands to reason that the turn out rate would be substantially higher. I know that people from other states signatures don't count but even the local population is affected by the winter months down there.