A.G. Gancarski
With a unanimous vote in its favor in City Council, it would have been a surprise if Alvin Brown had not signed the Charlotte’s Web moratorium passed last Tuesday at City Council into law. And so he did. But perhaps the words in the statement his office gave WJXT bear closer examination.
“The mayor recognizes the unanimous decision of City Council. However, he is also aware of the concerns that some citizens have raised since that vote, and understands that some council members may be open to receiving additional information and reviewing their previous decision. He is equally open to receiving additional information,” a statement from the mayor’s office said.
Brown, who sat out last year’s Amendment 2 fight (as well as the Charlie Crist campaign against his boon companion Rick Scott) has been cautious on marijuana. And it’s easy to say “he’s not going far enough” on this. I said the same thing on Tuesday on Facebook. But it won’t hurt to parse the statement.
“Some council members may be open to receiving additional information and reviewing their previous decision” and “he is equally open to receiving additional information” are not full-throated endorsements of the medical efficacy of cannabis. However, they are not the rhetoric of the Drug War either. They are, to be sure, cautious words. But there are suggestions that some movements behind the scenes may be underway, which could ameliorate the moratorium.
Even Richard Clark, who pushed the bill through Council, moderated his original stance in the same WJXT interview.
“I am not concerned about the entities that are going to cultivate, grow and distribute. They are going to be licensed and certainly will go through stringent qualifications. We totally agree with that,” Clark told THE Local Station on Tuesday. “What we don’t have here are local rules. Where they are going to be and how they are going to distribute? The state, in turn, that is not their purview. We need to protect those people. I don’t think anyone wants a marijuana distribution site next to their church or their kid’s elementary school.”
For medical marijuana activists, there is an opportunity here. One would urge them to reach out to Council. To show up at Committee meetings and Council meetings, and make their voices heard. Informing them about the medical applications for children, who stand to benefit most directly from Charlotte’s Web.
They should not be afraid to make the emotional appeal. There are differences between the outgoing mayor and the incoming mayor, but the common thread is that both men are fathers who love their children as much as anything in the world. The Council members, likewise, more often than not have children they love. The case has to be made personally, directly, blending emotion and science. The argument was made for Charlotte’s Web on the state level in that context. And so it should be in Jacksonville.
Could Alvin Brown have said more on this issue? That’s always the case. But in his way, even in signing this bill, he was inviting reconsideration. With that in mind, those who feel passionately about this matter have a responsibility to educate Jacksonville’s City Council, as activists have had to do on so many issues over the years, and compel them to do the right thing.
