{"id":37266,"date":"2019-08-02T11:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T19:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/08\/02\/florida-steps-closer-to-legal-cannabis-on-2020-ballot-hits-first-milestone\/"},"modified":"2019-08-02T12:51:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T20:51:20","slug":"florida-steps-closer-to-legal-cannabis-on-2020-ballot-hits-first-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/08\/02\/florida-steps-closer-to-legal-cannabis-on-2020-ballot-hits-first-milestone\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Steps Closer to Legal Cannabis on 2020 Ballot, Hits First Milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Florida advocates have hit a major milestone in the effort to legalize marijuana in Florida by collecting enough signatures to trigger an\u00a0official review of the language in their plan by the state\u2019s Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

If the Florida Supreme Court approves the ballot measure\u2019s language, the activists \u2014 working with the\u00a0Regulate Florida<\/a>\u00a0organization \u2014 will need to gather 766,200 signatures to get the cannabis legalization measure on the 2020 ballot<\/a>. So far, advocates have collected 78,381 signatures. When they hit the 76,000 mark, the judicial and financial impact reviews were triggered.<\/p>\n

NORML of Florida, one of the partner organizations in the Regulate Florida effort, announced the news via their Twitter on Monday.<\/p>\n

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Regulate Florida has gathered enough signatures to trigger the Florida Supreme Court to review its language. We need to continue collecting and sharing it to get to the ballot for 2020. pic.twitter.com\/Zj0dIrGAsI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 NORML of Florida (@NORMLFlorida) July 29, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

We reached out to Karen Goldstein, executive director of NORML of Florida and vice-chair of Regulate Florida, to get her take on the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re pretty confident the Supreme Court is going to be satisfied with our 75-word summary,\u201d Goldstein told Cannabis Now over the phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re moving on up. We\u2019re going to keep collecting. We have lots and lots of volunteers out there collecting,\u201d she said. \u201cWe get donations every day to help with printing costs and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldstein says what Regulate Florida really needs is someone with deep pockets to fund the campaign, \u201cbecause we need to be able to pay petitioners in order to collect the required number of signatures to qualify for ballot access.\u201d She said they\u2019re confident the money is going to come and everyone is in good spirits.<\/p>\n

Goldstein has been involved with Florida cannabis reform since helping start her NORML chapter in 2009. Eventually, NORML got involved with People United for Medical Marijuana, who she says \u201cwere the first group to start a serious petition for medical cannabis in Florida.\u201d That group would evolve into United for Care, at the time ran by Orlando attorney John Morgan.<\/p>\n

In late 2015, while still petitioning for medical marijuana, and minus Morgan, advocates began to work on ballot language for their state, using Colorado\u2019s Amendment 64 as a model. There were a few adjustments to account for the lessons learned since the Colorado<\/a> market opened up. The group had originally been approached by someone with a legalization plan they thought was a bit far-fetched, and they believed they could come up with something better. They did.<\/p>\n

Next came getting the signatures together. Signatures collected in Florida expire after two years, so they relaunched the collection effort in February of last year. Goldstein said the expired signatures came from a separate group before they relaunched the campaign. All the signatures collected since will be valid through the deadline to make the ballot.<\/p>\n

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Goldstein says her biggest concern in the months to come is fundraising.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cKeeping the coffers full, and actually filling them, is our goal right now,\u201d she said. \u201cAs I said, we can\u2019t do it with just volunteers. We need to be able to get out and pay people, we need donations, we need someone or some group with deep pockets, they\u2019ve been described as marijuana millionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldstein said she hopes the people that have made big money in Florida and other cannabis markets will come on board to support the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all have their eyes on Florida because we\u2019re going to be a huge industry,\u201d said Goldstein. \u201cWe have an enormous population and many of our seniors are very enthusiastic about cannabis, young people are as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldstein says those millionaires waiting to make a buck should be supporting efforts to change the law.<\/p>\n

We asked Goldstein what has been the response from the local Florida cannabis industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of think they\u2019ve been waiting for the Supreme Court review,\u201d said Goldstein. \u201cSo now that we\u2019ve got there, I\u2019m hoping they\u2019re not all going to wait for the results of the review.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if the wider industry continues to stay out of the mix, Goldstein says they\u2019ll fall back on their legion of volunteers around the state to keep things moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we get through the review, if we have funding, we will get to the ballot,\u201d said Goldstein.<\/p>\n

TELL US<\/strong>, do you think your state should have legal cannabis?<\/p>\n

The post Florida Steps Closer to Legal Cannabis on 2020 Ballot, Hits First Milestone<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: Florida Steps Closer to Legal Cannabis on 2020 Ballot, Hits First Milestone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida advocates have hit a major milestone in the effort to legalize marijuana in Florida by collecting enough signatures to trigger an\u00a0official review of the language in their plan by the state\u2019s Supreme Court. If the Florida Supreme Court approves the ballot measure\u2019s language, the activists \u2014 working with the\u00a0RegulateContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6814,50,388,687,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37266"}],"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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37267,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37266\/revisions\/37267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}