I am sad to report that Regulate Florida has announced recently that they no longer expect to meet the required number of signatures needed to place their initiative on the ballot in November 2016. While I’m sure there was a large part of Florida’s community that was hoping to see this pull through, the fact that they started late in the game was likely the downfall.
“The reality is showing us that we’re not going to get the million petitions or signatures verified by February 1,” Minardi said. “We had an uphill battle, honestly with getting a million signatures realistically from the end of August until December. We did believe with the movement and the momentum that we had that we could get this done, but unfortunately, we don’t think we’re going to at this point.”- The Daily Chronic
Personally, I’m extremely disappointed to report that this initiative is not going to make it – I had real hopes that maybe next year would be the big year for Florida all around. However, this doesn’t mean that Regulate Florida will give up all together.
The initiative still has a lot of supporters consider the short time that it was circulating. I believe that given more time, this petition would have made it all the way to the ballots – and next time around I hope I have the resources to aid more in the reform of marijuana in Florida.
While this is unfortunate news, we can still be happy about one thing – United for Care’s initiative wording was approved by the Supreme Court and they have gathered near 1 million signatures already. With only a few weeks left, any extra signatures will be greatly beneficial to this petition – so if you haven’t already signed it you need to hurry up and do so by December 31st for your signature to count!
From there they will have until February to validate all the signatures – of which they need 683,000. From there it will turn into a campaign to win over the voters. In 2014 we were so close to passing this initiative and in any other state, it would have passed.
So here’s to a second shot at legalizing medical marijuana in Florida! This campaign would legalize medicinal marijuana for people who with debilitating conditions like cancer, Parkinson’s and many, many others. Compared to the limited CBD oil law that is still stuck in the development process sill, this would be beneficial to many people who would not have access with current laws.
