Florida Supreme Court pulls the plug on the Recreational Cannabis Initiative

The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a proposed initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults is misleading and cannot appear on next year’s vote. The ruling marks the second time in three months that Florida’s highest court has rejected proposed election measures to legalize cannabis in the state.

The proposed constitutional amendment initiative, titled “Regulate marijuana in ways similar to alcohol, to set age, licensing and other restrictions,” was sponsored by Sensible Florida group, which moved in 2016 to put the measure on the state ballot. If successful, the constitutional amendment would have legalized marijuana use and home cultivation for adults and established a regulated cannabis economy.

After the campaign garnered enough signatures to qualify for a constitutional review, the Florida Attorney General asked the state Supreme Court in September 2019 to determine whether the language of the election was legal. The court heard oral arguments on the case in February 2020 but didn’t issue a decision until Thursday, more than two years later.

A majority in the court, consisting of Judges Charles Canady, Ricky Polston, Carlos Muñiz, John Courie and Jamie Grosshans, ruled that the summary of the voting measure was unconstitutional and should not appear on the 2022 ballot. The court based its decision on the inclusion of the term “limited use” in the 75-word ballot summary.

The initiative states that cannabis will be legalized “for limited use and cultivation by people aged 21 and over”. The court ruled that the language of the abstract could lead a voter to mistakenly believe that the initiative limits the amount of cannabis a person can consume. However, there is no such language in the initiative.

“The sponsor’s inability to indicate anything in the text of the action that could credibly support the ‘limited use’ in the abstract leaves no doubt that the abstract is affirmatively misleading,” wrote the majority judges.

Florida Supreme Court decision ensures rapid response Re

After the court’s decision was made public, Moody spokeswoman Lauren Cassidy thanked the court in a statement.

“Floriders need to understand what they are voting on when they go to the ballot box,” said Cassidy.

Attorney Michael Minardi, a supporter of the initiative, told the local press that he was disappointed with the Supreme Court decision. He said Sensible Florida was preparing a new draft of the initiative and still had hope that they could qualify the measure for the 2022 vote.

“We have already rewritten some alternate versions,” said Minardi. “It’s really a welcome thing to just finally have an opinion.”

US MP Charlie Crist, who represents Florida’s 13th Congressional District and hopes to be the Democratic challenger to Governor Ros DeSantis in next year’s election, criticized the court’s decision in a social media post.

“The Florida Supreme Court, which @GovRonDeSantis has crammed with partisan judges, has just turned down another voting initiative to get the Floridians to vote on legalizing marijuana. This is wrong. Legalization should be left to the people of Florida, ”Crist tweeted.

Court nullified separate initiative in April

Thursday’s ruling marks the second time in three months that the Florida Supreme Court has rejected a proposed marijuana legalization measure by Make It Legal Florida group. In April, the court ruled that a separate nomination was misleading because the summary failed to inform voters that cannabis was still illegal under federal law.

“A constitutional amendment cannot clearly ‘permit’ or authorize behavior that is criminalized under federal law,” Canady wrote in that decision. “A vote summary that suggests otherwise is, in the affirmative, misleading.”

After the vote was crushed, the Florida Commissioner for Agriculture and another Democrat who vied to nominate the DeSantis Challenge Party said state lawmakers were failing their voters.

“Florida voters took this into their own hands because the Florida legislature failed to give the people the right to legislate to legalize it,” Fried said. “My advice is that you listen to people’s will or you will soon be unemployed.”