There is a movement in West Palm Beach, Florida that has implications for the rest of the United States. Possibly the rest of the world.
Michael Minardi, a lawyer from West Palm Beach is working to make recreational marijuana use legal in the state of Florida. Considering that a ballot to legalize marijuana for medical purposes didn’t pass in 2014, he is very confident.
“We are going to use science, and we are going to use stats”, Minardi states. In March, he won a landmark case that successfully used medical necessity as a defense for marijuana charges against his client.
Minardi has teamed up with fellow attorney Bill Wohlsifer and marijuana activist Karen Goldstein to form the corporation Sensible Florida, along with the associated group, Regulate Florida. Working together, they have come up with proposed changes to the state constitution that would legalize and regulate recreational marijuana use for adults.
The Plan
The ‘Florida Cannabis Act’ proposes to legalize marijuana and to regulate it like alcohol. It would give anyone that is 21 or older to purchase and possess an ounce of marijuana, and grant them the ability to grow up to six plants at home, if they are licensed.
The proposed action gives adults the opportunity to use cannabis whenever and wherever they want, but it does come with stipulations. As mentioned, only adults who are 21 or older can purchase it, and it does not allow people to drive while intoxicated, like alcohol.
It also creates a licenses-regulated system of distribution to ensure the safety of the product and the safety of the consumer. Whenever a product is being regulated, it ensures that the product is safe.
This past summer, Minardi and his team were given the go-ahead to collect 683,149 signatures from verified voters, which is what they would need for the proposed amendment to be put onto the November 2016 ballot.
It won’t be easy however. In November, United for Care’s popular initiative to legalize marijuana for medical purposes failed by just two percentage points. In 2014, Sen. Dwight Bullard of Miami filed a bill that would have allowed 21 year olds to possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis and allowed people to grow at least six plants, but it died before reaching legislature.
To combat the attacks of those opposing Regulate Florida, Minardi plans to use statistics that show that crime rates and marijuana usage amongst teens has dropped since recreational marijuana was legalized.
The Benefits
He continues on to say how criminalizing marijuana has led to an expensive and ineffective war on drugs that has not decreased cannabis use at all. But in Colorado after legalizing and regulating marijuana there is a decrease in traffic fatalities, suicides, and opiate use.
Regulating marijuana also means taxing it-Colorado has made $44 million in the first five months of this year, and may even have to give some back to its residents. Officials will claim that legalizing it is for safety, but they can’t ignore the profit they could earn.
Minardi’s movement is small, he has no big financial banking and is counting on volunteers and t-shirt sales to push it further. They are seeing a great return on signatures and the response is mostly positive, but he does recognize there is still a ways to go before cannabis can be used for good.
SOURCE: http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/florida-cannabis-act-would-legalize-marijuana-7255598
