Nothing will stop Rick Scott, the popular Republican governor of Florida with aspirations for the US Senate and beyond, in his quest to prevent his citizens from smoking marijuana.<\/p>\n
His intransigence now has implications for the upcoming struggle over Donald Trump\u2019s first appointment to the United States Supreme Court \u2014 yes, Scott\u2019s attitude towards smoking weed has implications for gun-control, abortion rights and immigrant detention \u2014\u00a0and is also energizing marijuana legalization advocates to push forward to allow all adults in Florida to use the drug, in any form.<\/a><\/p>\n And\u00a0that\u00a0could in turn also affect voter turnout in Florida in the 2020 presidential election. In nearly every realistic scenario, anyone who wants to be president has to win Florida. Thus, it is not an exaggeration to say that Scott\u2019s personal issues with people smoking marijuana has serious implications for every American.\u00a0Heavy stuff, but true.<\/p>\n Medical cannabis has been legal in Florida since more than 71 percent of voters approved a ballot initiative at the November 2016 election. Since then, cannabis advocates \u2014 including the initiative\u2019s original sponsors \u2014 have been locked in a near-continuous struggle with Scott, state lawmakers and health regulators in order for patients to be able to actually use medical marijuana.<\/p>\n The voter initiative, Amendment 2, was thin on details. Filling those in was left to lawmakers. On the last day of the 2017 legislative session, the Florida Legislature approved and Scott signed into law a set of rules governing cannabis that, among other things, banned marijuana in smokeable form in\u00a0favor of tinctures and topicals.<\/p>\n That \u201cviolated the intent\u201d of the voter initiative, according to prominent Orlando trial attorney\u00a0John Morgan<\/a>, who filed suit on behalf of a Tallahassee-area strip-club owner to allow Florida patients to smoke their cannabis.<\/p>\n In May, a district judge sided with Morgan and overturned the ban. The state \u2014 and Scott \u2014 swiftly appealed, arguing that to allow Florida patients to smoke \u201cgoes against what the Legislature outlined when they wrote and approved Florida\u2019s law.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c[There] are various other forms of medical marijuana presently available and approved [or permitted]\u2026 in Florida for qualifying patients,\u201d\u00a0the state argued in brief filed on June 12, according to the Orlando Sentinel.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cFor example, vaping or vaporization of marijuana flower is permitted for medical use, so long as the flower is in a sealed, tamperproof receptacle.\u201d<\/p>\n At some point later this year, the question will go before the Florida state Supreme Court, where the state\u2019s lawyers \u2014 that is, Scott\u2019s lawyers, in his official capacity as governor \u2014 will actually argue that most people don\u2019t consider cannabis a smokeable product.<\/p>\n Depending on how that process goes (and how willing either Scott or Morgan will be to press the issue) there is reason to believe that the question of what form most people consider marijuana to be used could go before the US Supreme Court.<\/p>\n But in the meantime, Scott has an election to win. He is currently about four points behind sitting U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, in what is one of the most closely watched \u2014 and potentially most impactful \u2014 Congressional races in the country.<\/p>\n If Nelson wins and the Democrats pick up just one more seat somewhere else, the Republicans\u2019 razor-thin majority in the Senate is gone. Supreme Court justices need to be approved by a majority in the Senate. If the Democrats win back the Senate, Donald Trump\u2019s nominee for the court \u2014 whomever it may be \u2014 may suffer payback for the Republicans\u2019 filibuster of Barack Obama\u2019s nominee, Merrick Garland. Obama nominated Garland to fill a vacant seat on the court \u2014\u00a0and you may recall that Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led an effort to keep the seat vacant until Trump was elected.<\/a><\/p>\n And hovering over all of this is the smoking marijuana question, which has become a campaign issue. Nelson is not an idiot and shortly after the lower Florida court overturned the smoking ban, he wisely told reporters that, yeah, patients in that state should smoke if they want to, like they can in California, Michigan, Arkansas \u2014 yes, Arkansas! \u2014 and most everywhere else medical marijuana is legal.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want a government or a politician to get in the way of a doctor recommending what should be the treatment, the medical treatment, for that doctor\u2019s patient,\u201d\u00a0Nelson said<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s just not right, and therefore, yes, I support, and have with my vote, medical marijuana recommended by a physician.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Tampa Bay Times wrote, this is now a handy wedge issue for Nelson \u2014 and considering marijuana\u2019s obvious popularity among Florida voters, its value is obvious.<\/p>\n In this way, Scott\u2019s position on marijuana smoking could cost him a Senate seat. That could cost the Republicans the Senate, and in turn, could cost Trump the chance to lock in a conservative court for the next 20 to 30 years. Whether he figures this out in time \u2014 and whether he adjusts accordingly has implications for every Florida who uses cannabis, as well as Americans who have not yet been born.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think cannabis laws should allow for smoking?<\/p>\n The post How Marijuana Smoking in Florida Could Affect the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Nothing will stop Rick Scott, the popular Republican governor of Florida with aspirations for the US Senate and beyond, in his quest to prevent his citizens from smoking marijuana. His intransigence now has implications for the upcoming struggle over Donald Trump\u2019s first appointment to the United States Supreme Court \u2014Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3963,4819,50,388,90,4820,3328,4514,4821,3666,507],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27517,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27516\/revisions\/27517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: How Marijuana Smoking in Florida Could Affect the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"