A.G. Gancarski
Florida’s Governor and Surgeon General continue to offer dire warnings about a constitutional amendment that would legalize adult-use marijuana beyond the current medical framework.
On Friday at the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Joe Ladapo, the state’s top doc, issued familiar claims about the “corporate carveout” amendment, the impacts of marijuana on quality of life for adults and “kids” alike, the pecuniary motivations of pot companies, while adding new material to a road-tested repertoire.
DeSantis noted that there are already a “helluva lot of weed stores in Florida,” adding that “doctors” involved in medical marijuana think Amendment 3 “will be bad for that.”
MMJ patients must now get a doctor’s certification, often after brief consultations to ascertain eligibility.
DeSantis also voiced concerns that the amendment does not facilitate “freedom” by not having a home-growing provision, saying, “You cannot grow your own under this amendment.”
“Why not? If this is about freedom, you (could grow) in your backyard … that would be the basic building block of freedom. They don’t want you to do that because they want to force a business relationship with their cartel.”
The Governor also said the “price would get higher” in a recreational framework, leading to “a dramatic expansion” of the black market, saying the same thing happened in Colorado.
Regarding law enforcement members who endorsed the amendment, DeSantis said most sheriffs aren’t behind it.
He said about pro-weed sheriffs: “You should figure out why they’re doing that because I guarantee you there’s more to that story.”
As has been the case at every event highlighting his position on this pot push, the Governor did not mention Donald Trump being in favor of the amendment.
Ladapo, who confessed that he “didn’t get enough sleep last night” and therefore “not all the systems are firing yet” to begin his remarks, said he had no issue with people using marijuana “privately in their homes” but that “people are being preyed upon” with the marketing of the “grotesque” amendment.
“It’s not about freedom,” the St. Petersburg resident said. “It’s about enslavement.”
Ladapo’s Department of Health administers the medical marijuana program, which has certificates of analysis saying what is in the product, but suggested the same companies privileged by the current setup that favors multistate operators may have nefarious intentions for recreational products.
“The marijuana that’s available now has much higher levels of THC, and heaven knows what else these guys are doing when they have been when they’ve been sort of specializing the type of crop that grows and they sell,” the Surgeon General said.
Ladapo also said he hoped the CEO of one of the state’s marijuana companies (presumably Kim Rivers of Trulieve) didn’t have children, given her faulty understanding of gummies demonstrated during a TV hit this week.
“Do you not have kids? Just you know, when a kid sees something that looks like a gummy, is that kid going to look and see whether it’s shaped like a star, or does it just look like a gummy, right? I don’t know if she has children or not. I’ve never met her. I hope she doesn’t.”
The Florida Chamber notes that only three states have passed weed legalization with more than 60% support, the minimum approval in Florida, and he didn’t want his state to become the fourth.
“This is a total gimmick,” Chamber CEO Mark Wilson said. “This is a total scam.”
DeSantis remarked that states with weed legalization, like California, have “hemorrhaged” businesses, linking a lack of a rec market to the state’s fiscal “surplus.”
The Governor suggested, based on a political trip to Nevada where he smelled cannabis in a hotel, that a legal product in Florida could lower tourist interest in a Sunshine State vacation.
23 comments
MH/Duuuval
October 25, 2024 at 2:06 pm
Dee running hither and yon with nothing to say of substance. A bad example for the kiddies.
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Brian Kelly
October 26, 2024 at 3:46 am
Regarding “The Children”,
Let’s not use “The Children” as an excuse to prohibit and criminalize adult use of a natural plant far less dangerous than perfectly legal alcohol because nobody condones child use, and this is about allowing adults only to choose cannabis.
It’s our responsibility as parents by to educate our children on both alcohol and cannabis use. It’s not the government’s job to force Draconian cannabis Laws upon every adult citizen under the guise of protecting “The Children”.
What message are we sending our children when in states where cannabis remains completely illegal and prohibited, it is easier for them to obtain cannabis than it is for them to buy alcohol?
It doesn’t take the intellect of a genius to understand that stores card kids for I.D. Thugs and gang members do not. They also push the real hard drugs on children. Stores do not.
Cannabis legalization makes it harder for children to obtain it.
What message does it send our children when several of the Presidents of The United States themselves alongside a long list of successful people openly admit to cannabis use at one time or another in their lives?
While we tell our kids how it will ruin their futures, and then ensure so, by allowing our government to to jail our children and give them permanent criminal records when they get caught with a little cannabis. Especially, if they are the wrong skin color or from the “wrong neighborhood”. Which in turn, ruins their chances of employment for life.
The Prohibition of cannabis is the wrong message to send our children while we glorify, advertise and promote the much more dangerous use of alcohol like it’s an all American pastime.
The worst thing about cannabis and our children is what happens to them when they get caught up in the criminal justice system due to it’s prohibition.
Protect “The Children” and Our Neighborhoods Through The Legalization and Regulation of Cannabis Nationwide!
Brian Kelly
October 26, 2024 at 3:47 am
Fear of Cannabis Legalization Nationwide is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever. So please prohibitionists, we beg you to give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Cannabis Nationwide a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?
Furthermore, if all prohibitionists get when they look into that nice, big and shiny crystal ball of theirs, while wondering about the future of cannabis legalization, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest they return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money they shelled out for it, since it’s obviously defective.
The prohibition of cannabis has not decreased the supply nor the demand for cannabis at all. Not one single iota, and it never will. Just a huge and complete waste of our tax dollars to continue criminalizing citizens for choosing a natural, non-toxic, relatively benign plant proven to be much safer than alcohol.
If prohibitionists are going to take it upon themselves to worry about “saving us all” from ourselves, then they need to start with the drug that causes more death and destruction than every other drug in the world COMBINED, which is alcohol!
Why do prohibitionists feel the continued need to vilify and demonize cannabis when they could more wisely focus their efforts on a real, proven killer, alcohol, which again causes more destruction, violence, and death than all other drugs, COMBINED?
Prohibitionists really should get their priorities straight and/or practice a little live and let live. They’ll live longer, happier, and healthier, with a lot less stress if they refrain from being bent on trying to control others through Draconian Cannabis Laws.
Brian Kelly
October 26, 2024 at 3:47 am
Contrary to what prohibitionists are so desperately trying to get the public to believe wholeheartedly and without question, legalizing cannabis IS NOT adding anything new into our society that wasn’t always there and widely available already.
Therefore cannabis legalization does not lead to some massive influx of new cannabis consumers. The very same people who have been consuming cannabis during it’s prohibition are for the most part the very same ones who will be consuming cannabis when it’s legal.
The prohibition of cannabis has never prevented cannabis’s widespread availability nor anyone from consuming cannabis that truly desires to do so.
Cannabis has been ingrained within our society since the days of our founding fathers and part of human culture since biblical times, for thousands of years.
So, since cannabis has always been with us and humans already have thousands upon thousands of years worth of experience with cannabis, what great calamities and “Doomsday Scenarios” do prohibitionists really think will happen now due to current legalization efforts that have never ever happened before in all human history?
Legalize Nationwide Federally Now!
Brian Kelly
October 26, 2024 at 3:48 am
There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize cannabis nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.
The prohibitionist view on cannabis is the viewpoint of a minority and rapidly shrinking percentage of Americans. It is based upon decades of lies and propaganda.
Each and every tired old lie they have propagated has been thoroughly proven false by both science and society.
Their tired old rhetoric no longer holds any validity. The vast majority of Americans have seen through the sham of cannabis prohibition in this day and age. The number of prohibitionists left shrinks on a daily basis.
With their credibility shattered, and their not so hidden agendas visible to a much wiser public, what’s left for a cannabis prohibitionist to do?
Maybe, just come to terms with the fact that Cannabis Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide!…and Support All Cannabis Legalization Efforts!
MH/Duuuval
October 27, 2024 at 12:34 pm
Refreshing to have Joe Gruters, Florida favorite son of Trump, touting pot legalization. Just like The Great One.
Gruters can’t bring himself around to protecting in the Constitution the right of a woman to control her body.
Like the traditional Protestant hymn, Joe “is almost persuaded.”
Cheesy Floridian
October 25, 2024 at 2:32 pm
The man seems desperate to me honestly. He says we are the free state of Florida, why not let us make our own informed decisions on the amendment instead of spreading lies. The REASON the amendment mentions NOTHING about home grown is because the Florida State Constitution says that ballot initiatives need to be a single subject or its invalid. If this amendment passes and I sure hope it does the legislature and the GOVERNOR could pass and sign a bill into law allowing Floridians the ability to grow it at home. But if it’s still considered illegal, how are is that type of bill ever able to pass when the legislative branch has been under your thumb for 2 years? He is lying to peoples faces and boldy doing so and that speaks volumes. It says deep down he feels that Floridians are dumb and aren’t paying attention.
MH/Duuuval
October 25, 2024 at 2:54 pm
Recall how Dee stymied the initiative to restore voting rights to former felons, and went to some lengths to muddy the waters as a means to minimize registration — like 3 AM visits from a cadre of cops with a warrant.
Brian Kelly
October 26, 2024 at 3:48 am
What we certainly don’t need are anymore people who feel justified in appointing themselves to be self-deputized morality police.
We are very capable of choosing for ourselves if we want to consume cannabis, a far less dangerous choice over alcohol, and we definitely don’t need anyone dictating how we should live our own lives.
We can’t just lock up everyone who does things prohibitionists don’t personally approve of.
Brian Kelly
October 26, 2024 at 3:49 am
States “rights” has become just a clever excuse, disguise and blanket authority being used for a very small minority of irrational prohibitionists to be able to criminalize everything that they personally don’t morally approve of. Same with abortion and even books that they don’t morally approve of, and they have the nerve to call it states “rights”.
The only “right” states rights provide is the right of a very small minority to criminalize anything they don’t morally approve of in their individual home states. It needs to end now! It’s like having 50 different countries with different laws instead of a “United” States.
States rights=Criminalization of the citizens by a very small lunatic fringe minority of irrational prohibitionists whom have self righteously appointed themselves as self deputized morality police over everyone else.
Brian Kelly
October 26, 2024 at 3:49 am
It’s time for us, the majority of The People to take back control of our national cannabis policy. By voting OUT of office any and all politicians who very publicly and vocally admit to having an anti-cannabis, prohibitionist agenda! Time to vote’em all OUT of office. Period. Plain and simple.
Politicians who continue to demonize Cannabis, Corrupt Law Enforcement Officials who prefer to ruin peoples lives over Cannabis possession rather than solve real crimes who fund their departments toys and salaries with monies acquired through cannabis home raids, seizures and forfeitures, and so-called “Addiction Specialists” who make their income off of the judicial misfortunes of our citizens who choose cannabis, – Your actions go against The Will of The People and Your Days In Office Are Numbered! Find new careers before you don’t have one.
The People have spoken! Get on-board with Cannabis Legalization Nationwide, or be left behind and find new careers. Your choice.
Jason
October 25, 2024 at 3:04 pm
Putting two sentences together. Like get these things on your own.
Freedom to choose what can be abused and what can’t.
Joe
October 25, 2024 at 3:08 pm
You have to be a special kind of stupid to believe anything that Tiny D’s toadie Ladapo says about it.
MH/Duuuval
October 25, 2024 at 7:54 pm
MAGA voters are not worried about Trump’s incipient fascism, but those of us living in Florida are seeing the emergence of a full-blown fascism in Ron DeSantis. Currently that means Dee has taken it upon himself to rally state resources and tax monies against the right of the people to create laws that Dee opposes.
Frankie M.
October 25, 2024 at 8:29 pm
Black person talking about “enslavement” to refer to an amendment to legalize marijuana. Where is the faux outrage from AG or is that reserved only for his ancestors lost in the Holocaust? Speaking truth to power is ok as long as it’s limited to sound bites about job growth & trade? Don’t answer questions that are posed to you? What is the answer? Besides Ladapo isn’t even a real doctor. He doesn’t have a lab coat & stethoscope like Doc McStuffins.
MH/Duuuval
October 26, 2024 at 10:59 am
Ladapo is the immigrant we should fear: He’ll do or say anything to advance his own interests.
wake and bake
October 26, 2024 at 8:54 am
If the amendment passes or not has NO bearing on the Legislature’s ability to legalize home grown pot and the Governor’s ability to advocate for such legislation and to sign it into law! So, we should demand an immediate special session to legalize homegrown ganja! Before the votes are counted we could be planting our sweet leaf! Freedom!! For God’s sake it’s a plant that God gave us to enjoy and has been enjoyed for thousands of years around the world. All of this new talk about “freedom” rings hollow Governor. Freedom my butt.
MH/Duuuval
October 26, 2024 at 10:59 am
Like Dee will support homegrown? Please.
John Q Publix
October 26, 2024 at 9:55 am
I’ve read in science publications that smoking weed makes men want to lay with other men in sexual ways and is part of a leftist plot to de-populate America so comunist governments can invade and make us all slaves. Men should stay away from weed and stay Str8 to keep our country strong. J Q Publix
MH/Duuuval
October 26, 2024 at 11:00 am
Another bot post. Or, still another by Peachy.
Can
October 26, 2024 at 1:15 pm
Medical brings cash you need a prescription.. recreational will open more business than will eventually squash themselves out.
MH/Duuuval
October 26, 2024 at 4:40 pm
My advice: Don’t throw away your grow lights just yet.