FL Supreme Court justices not convinced by recreational pot proposal language
Florida Supreme Court Justices picked apart a proposal that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana, indicating they’re unlikely to approve the ballot measure in its current form.
The proposal is one of two that advocates hope to get before voters in 2022 that would allow adults to use marijuana without a medical reason. This proposal, backed by a committee chaired by Tampa attorney Michael Minardi, would allow Floridians to grow marijuana.
It would also require the state to adopt a new licensing structure for marijuana growing, manufacturing, testing and selling, and it allows local governments to regulate if the state “fails to timely act.”
Before it can go before voters, however, the Supreme Court has to sign off that the amendment sticks to a single subject and isn’t misleading.
And the justices on Tuesday struggled to get past the first few words of the ballot summary, which starts with “regulates marijuana for limited use” for people over the age of 21.
Chief Justice Charles Canady noted that the “use” of marijuana would not be limited at all by the amendment — people would be allowed to smoke as much as they want. The possession, however, would be limited to six maturing plants or quantities “reasonably indicative of personal use.”
“Isn’t it true that under this proposal, an adult will have the ability to make unlimited use of marijuana?” Chief Justice Charles Canady asked.
Minardi agreed, but noted that the use would be limited to people 21 and older, and there are other restrictions on how much people can grow and possess.
Canady did not sound convinced.
“If it said ‘regulates marijuana for adult use,’ maybe we’d be talking about something a little different,” Canady said. “But it says limited use, and I just think that conjures up something that is a little different than the reality.
Justice Carlos Muñiz took issue with the title of the amendment, which starts with, “Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol.”
Muñiz noted that the proposed amendment would add a slew of regulations and restrictions on marijuana to the Florida Constitution, while regulations on alcohol are not in the Constitution.
“It seems like you’re misstating something very fundamentally,” Muñiz said. “The first five words that someone reads are inaccurate.”
Minardi replied that it would be regulated in a way that most people understand alcohol is regulated: you need an ID to buy it, it’s restricted to people 21 or older and you can’t drive while under its influence, for example.
The amendment is opposed by Attorney General Ashley Moody, who said in August that the 10-page proposal shouldn’t go before voters because it was too long.
Lawyers for her office and the Florida Chamber of Commerce made a different argument Tuesday, saying that the amendment was misleading in part because it didn’t notify voters that the regulation of marijuana would be shifted to a different state agency. The justices didn’t appear to buy their arguments.
After arguments Tuesday, Minardi told the Herald/Times that he was not surprised by the arguments made by the Attorney General’s Office, the Florida Chamber of Commerce or the justices themselves.
Much of their criticism of the scope of the amendment and the ballot language already came through in the briefs they filed. No matter what the court decides, he said, he plans on moving forward in an effort to legalize adult-use cannabis.
If the court doesn’t approve of the language, he hopes to team up with others in the industry to better fund the effort and come up with an amendment that could trigger an earlier Supreme Court review.
“We’re excited and ready to move forward either way, in full force,” he said. “We are full steam ahead for 2022.”
However, Minardi said he hopes the justices affirm the language so that his group, Sensible Florida, can continue collecting signatures and secure a spot on the ballot in 2022.
As of December, Minardi’s initiative had collected only 92,851 valid signatures and raised less than $220,000.
Before the new year, Minardi ended the campaign with an announcement on the group’s website. It would have needed 766,200 verified signatures by Feb. 1 to make the deadline.
“The sad reality is that we are not going to be able to meet deadline,” Minardi wrote to supporters then.
Minardi’s campaign was not the only push for adult-use cannabis to fizzle this year. In January, the Make it Legal Florida political committee also ended its effort to get on the 2020 ballot.
The campaign, which raised over $8.7 million in primarily marijuana industry money since it launched in August, had spent $7.7 million on the effort.
Both campaigns blame a new law that went into effect July 2019 for inhibiting them from securing an earlier Supreme Court review and from collecting enough signatures to get on the ballot.
The Make it Legal Florida initiative even sued because of it.
The elections law, which was tacked onto a tax-cut bill as an amendment during the chaotic final days of the 2019 legislative session, requires that ballot initiatives pay petitioners by wage or hour, not by signatures gathered, making for a more expensive campaign.
Make it Legal Florida alleged that the new law placed undue restrictions on the ballot initiative process, and claimed that the nearly two months of glitches that came with a newly created state web portal to register paid petition gatherers was detrimental to the petition efforts.
Minardi says it “absolutely” affected his campaign, telling the Herald/Times
“It put petitioners out for a period of time while awaiting rules and then getting the correct forms and signing up,” he said. “It slowed down the process.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 5:54 PM.