Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Medical marijuana is officially on the 2016 ballot.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Ken Detzner certified the medical marijuana initiative as Amendment 2 on the 2016 ballot.
“It’s official: Medical marijuana is back on the ballot as Amendment 2,” said John Morgan, chairman of United for Care, in an email to supporters Tuesday. “The revised 2016 amendment is tighter, clearer, and it has already resulted in unanimous approval by the Florida Supreme Court, no opposition from Attorney General Pam Bondi, and hundreds of thousands of new supporters.”
According to the Division of Elections, the ballot amendment received 716,270 valid signatures, well above the 683,149 required to be on the ballot.
The amendment will be in the same ballot spot as 2014, the last time the effort was on the ballot. Morgan and United for Care campaign manager Ben Pollara have said they expect few opponents in 2016.
“When we started till now, no law firm had a marijuana practice area. Now every big law firm has a medical marijuana practice area. Not one lobbyist had a marijuana client. Now every lobbyist has a marijuana client,” Morgan said last week. “Law firms, lobbyists, legislators, they know it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, and they just have to figure out how to do it.”
In 2014, the amendment received 58 percent of the vote, just shy of the 60 percent it needed to become law.
Detzner certified a second ballot amendment Tuesday. Amendment 1 will deal with solar power. The initiative “establishes a right … for consumers to own or lease solar equipment installed on their property to generate electricity for their own use.”
