A full year has passed since Florida let medicinal marijuana slip through the cracks by a mere 2%. Of course you know that hasn’t kept anyone down, especially not John Morgan and United for Care, the most well-known marijuana reform initiative in the state of Florida which is fighting for legalized medical marijuana to be offered to people who live with qualifying debilitating conditions.
Last year this ballot initiative was thrown through all sorts of hoops in order to get to the ballot boxes in November – this year it appears that they’ve managed to fix up their language to suite everyone’s concerns from the previous year. Now the hardest part is upon us – gathering petitions and fundraising to pay signature gatherers.
At the rate we’ve been seeing this movement grow we’re making significant progress when compared to the first time around. The language wasn’t challenged and there was no insane wait at Supreme Court for a verdict – everything has gone rather smoothly with the exception of getting the required number of valid signatures.
Currently there has been over 800,000 petitions collected – but not all of these signatures will be valid – which is why there is still a race to get a total of 683,149 petitions validated by January of 2016. To do this United for Care is hoping to raise an additional $73,000 by the end of this year.
The hope here is that they will be able to raise enough money to get signature gatherers out there every day until January 1st finally comes. Once that day rolls around it will be time for the final count – and finding out whether or not the ballot made the cut (which I’m sure it will).
After that we Floridians will start noticing the shift from “we need you to sign this petition” to “this is why you should vote for Amendment…” and after last year the United for Care group has already considered a new approach that they feel will be much more effective this year.
With the fact remaining that we will need to see at least 60% of the vote for United for Care’s initiative for it to pass some may still be a little worried – and there is a good reason for that. Come November it will be a test of whether or not our message has sunk into some of our more conservative residents.
So if you live in the Florida area, see what you can do to help the United for Care petition – they accept donations and volunteers – even just getting your friends to sign the petition and sending it in is a step in the right direction! The more of us who come together, the better chance we have at making a difference in 2016.
