The people of Florida recently voted for the legalization of marijuana in a vote which saw a 64% vote in favour. This was the highest ever response rate ever recorded. Unfortunately for the Floridians, their wait is far from over, they will have to exercise tempting levels of patience before it is confirmed if they will join the other states which have legalized marijuana. This is after their advocated who had been tasked with the collection of 766,000 signatures failed to beat the given deadline. The signatures were supposed to affirm public support for marijuana legalization.
The Regulate Florida chief attorney confessed that they only managed to secure 40 000 signatures which are a very low number. He, however, insists that they are not giving up but are shifting their focus to the year 2020. Regulate Florida is a major party when it comes to pushing for marijuana legalization in the state.
The group believes that it has ample time between now and 2020 to iron things out. Their main target is the election period when it will be easy to draw support from different stakeholders. The group is also hopeful that they will have secured enough signatures by then. However, 40000 signatures are required by the supreme court of Florida in order for the group’s petition to be reviewed by the supreme court. If the supreme court upholds their petition then they will be free to push for 2020 regulations.
According to Michael Minardi who is the head of Regulate Florida, their main goal is is to secure a supreme courts approval which will guarantee a direct entry into the 2020 ballot. The petition outlines all the regulations concerning marijuana, the proposed laws, production and the rights of the parties involved. The laws will permit individuals above 21 years to grow up to 6 plants and be free to purchase the drug from licensed stores.
Minardi, however, blames the state government for slowing down the process even after the public voted on its favour back in 2016. This move is believed to have discouraged a lot of investors in the industry. The legislature is outrightly denying people their right which they have fought for. This has really encouraged a lot of people to join forces and back Regulate Florida
Minardi insists that his group will increase its campaigns for the legalization of marijuana and raise awareness within the public in order to rally as much support as necessary. Funding is one of the key challenges facing the group but they hope to secure sponsorships with more awareness. This has been a major set back especially with running court cases and petitions, courts are just expensive you know.
Minardi hopes that the group will have secured the signatures come 2020 something which he sees as an oncoming failure, these dooms prediction is brought about by the fact that they failed to raise a tenth of the required signatures in the past two years, what would change this fact in the next two years?
Minardi is however confident that with more people joining in on the campaign failure will be evaded as a member can easily raise the signatures. It is going to take a while before Florida joins the hall of legal marijuana.
