According to North Florida House Republican Matt Gaetz, Floridians have no need to vote on Amendment 2, the medical marijuana initiative, this November, since the Legislature passed a bill last week which legalizes the use of non-euphoric cannabis to treat a number of adult and childhood diseases.“I hope passage of the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act shows people we’ve done the responsible thing and that legalizing euphoric marijuana for functionally recreational purposes would be unnecessary and undesirable,” Gaetz told the Northwest Florida Daily News.
But Ben Pollara, the director of United for Care, the group pushing for Amendment 2, strongly disagrees with Gaetz.
"If anything, it crystallizes the need to pass Amendment 2 this fall," Pollara told CL late Tuesday afternoon. "The bills passed out of the House and Senate were great affirmations that the Florida Legislature believes what we've been saying — that marijuana is medicine — but they simply don't go far enough."
SB 103 will establish a "compassionate use registry" for cancer and intractable epilepsy patients and an infrastructure for the cultivation and distribution of non-euphoric medical marijuana treatments in Florida. It would allow doctors to prescribe a strain of marijuana known as "Charlotte's Web" which contains low amounts of THC, the active ingredient that provides the "high" from smoking pot. But the marijuana does contain normal amounts of non-euphoric cannabidiol (CBDs).
Pollara says that those strains of low-level THC simply don't help people with cancer or are going through chemotherapy and have a difficult time keeping food down.
During the just-concluded legislative session, lawmakers were moved to hear stories from some Florida families who have joined other families around the country to move to Colorado to search for treatment for their children who suffer from illnesses like epilepsy. But there have been reports that the effectiveness of CBDs varies widely.
"You see families who have moved from all over the country to get this 'Charlotte's Web' thing, and what they've found is that Charlotte's Web doesn't help their kids because it doesn't have a high enough THC ratio," Pollara says.
But under the new law expected to be signed by Governor Scott, families in Florida whose children suffer the same fate don't have other options like those in Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized for all. "They can't go to a 2 percent THC variation because that's illegal. Under Amendment 2, it would be legal."
Although Pollara takes exception to Representative Gaetz' comments on Amendment 2, he's actually appreciative of his efforts (along with South Florida Democratic Representative Katie Edwards and state Senator Jeff Clemens) to get through the Charlotte's Web bill this session, because the latest Quinnipiac Poll taken earlier this week on medical marijuana is actually up six points (with 88 percent now in favor) from when Quinnipiac last asked the question in December.
"I think it's a really big deal in public perception that the Legislature has taken on this issue and passed this law, even if they don't go far enough," he says, adding that it's a big step forward in the public's perception of medical marijuana.