Florida Governor Ron and First Lady Casey DeSantis have shifted from their opposition to Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion in the Florida Constitution, to Amendment 3, which would legalize recreational marijuana for adults. As Margie Menzel reports, earlier in this election season, polls showed Amendment 3 passing easily. But since Governor DeSantis and his allies have been working to oppose it, the campaign has tightened.
Recently, the governor held press events in Cape Coral and Fort Myers.
“And they’ll say, ‘Oh,’ I see these commercials, ‘No one should be put in prison for smoking marijuana,’” DeSantis said. “Well, you know, I agree with that, and so I asked the Department of Corrections, our secretary, ‘How many people are currently in prison in Florida for either possessing or smoking this amount of marijuana?’ You know the answer to that? Zero. Not a single person in the state of Florida. So that’s a total red herring.”
On the same day, First Lady Casey DeSantis joined other opponents of the measure in Jacksonville. She pointed to the amounts of money being spent on the campaign by dispensaries that sell medical marijuana in Florida -- $100 million by one company alone, she said.
“This is a company that wants a return on their investment. That’s why they’ve invested so much,” she said. “But ask yourselves: If this is truly again about freedom, then why is it that when they wrote this amendment, they say you can only smoke their product, it is illegal for you to grow it at your house, and they give themselves liability protections?”
The First Lady was joined by some Florida sheriffs. The Florida Sheriffs Association is opposed to the amendment, but not all law enforcement organizations agree with that stance. According to the language of the amendment, the marijuana treatment centers and other entities would be responsible for producing, selling and cultivating the product. However, the Vote No on 3 campaign has seized on the role of the marijuana treatment facilities. They’re the ones who ran this ad:
“Giant corporations don’t do things out of the goodness of their heart. They do things to make money. And that’s exactly why they wrote Amendment 3. Marijuana mega-corporations spent 60 million bucks putting Amendment 3 on your ballot. Why? It entrenches their monopoly…bans home-grown pot…and gives special licenses to select corporations. They wrote it. They rigged it. And they’re hoping you fall for it. Amendment 3 isn’t the marijuana amendment. It’s the monopoly amendment.”
According to Politifact, if approved, the measure wouldn’t be a monopoly. The Florida Legislature would determine processes for entities to acquire licenses to sell recreational marijuana. The state could license additional medical marijuana entities.
Steve Vancore agrees. He’s the spokesperson for Trulieve, the giant pot company that has provided most of the funding for the Amendment 3 campaign – the $100 million that Casey DeSantis mentioned.
“But what the language does - and understanding when you do a citizen initiative petition drive - you have to drive through a very narrow lane called single subject,” he said. “It’s more complicated than that. But we looked at the prior amendments that the Supreme Court of Florida had rejected. And one of the reasons they rejected them is that it tried to do too many things.”
And one of those things, Vancore says, was to mandate homegrown.
“So instead, we took a different tack,” he said. “What the amendment says is that it allows the Legislature to have entities that are not medical marijuana treatment centers, which could be an individual. It could be a small business to do a variety of things individually, like cultivate, which is to grow, to distribute, to sell, to possess. So, this expands the market.”
Jessica Spencer leads the advocacy for the No on 3 campaign and has a background in substance abuse intervention and treatment.
“It’s the wrong message. We do not need to legalize another intoxicating substance when we are talking about our children and what is safe for them,” she said. “Marijuana is not safe. We are not talking about the pot of yesteryear that’s a very low potency. That’s not at all what is on the table here. We’re talking about high-potency products that are also dangerous to young people’s brains.”
Florida has about 25 licensed medical marijuana distributors with other applications pending.
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