Last week, when questioned on whether he was going to jump into the 2020 fight for legalization, Orlando Attorney John Morgan – who was behind the successful Amendment 2 campaign to legalize medical marijuana – had said he wasn’t sure Florida was ready and he was focusing his efforts on a campaign to raise the minimum wage in the state instead.
However, this week he announced a sudden change of mind on Twitter, saying that he would join the fight for legal marijuana in 2020 after all.
“I have decided that I am too old to care. I believe that #marijuana should be legal!!” Morgan wrote on his Twitter account. “I think we have time and I think there is money to get it done. I already have the minimum wage signatures. Let’s do this maybe, forget Tallahassee! #ForThePeople – #PotDaddy”
When approached by someone else on Twitter who asked if he made the decision just before sending the Tweet, Morgan wrote “Not at all. But I will need help, I think it is coming!” According to The Orlando Sentinel, Morgan was approached by industry leaders who have the money to help back this effort – though it is unclear at this time who those industry leaders might be.
“I was approached by industry leaders who have the deep deep pockets to do it and do it fast,” Morgan said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel Tuesday.
At this point, Morgan has not said whether he plans to join one of the campaigns that is already out there – such as Regulate Florida, who has the advantage of already having about 80,000 of the almost 800,000 signatures needed – or if he will create a whole new campaign like he did with United for Care (that ran the Amendment 2 campaign in both 2014 and 2016).
“This is a job creator,” he said. “This is a tax creator, and this is good for our agriculture community. …The whole thing should be legal,” Morgan went on. “Nobody should go to jail for smoking a joint. Nobody should go to jail for eating a gummy.”
Recent polls show that roughly 65 percent of Floridians are prepared to vote in favor of legalizing marijuana – more than the 60 percent supermajority required for it to pass. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t be an uphill battle with hundreds of thousands of signatures needed, millions of dollars to be spent to obtain those signatures and run the campaign. No matter how Morgan plans to go about joining the fight, they have until February 2nd, 2020 to gather all the needed signatures.
