Pubdate: Sun, 24 Mar 2013
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2013 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Nicole Brochu
Page: 1A

SOUTH FLORIDA LEADS PUSH FOR MEDICAL POT

Just a year ago, you'd be high to think medical marijuana had any 
hope of ever passing muster with Florida's conservative Legislature.

But a colorful cadre of pot proponents from South Florida are bucking 
conventional wisdom, challenging party loyalties and - riding a wave 
of reefer madness sweeping some U.S. states - getting some unexpected results.

"When we came to Tallahassee this year [for the spring legislative 
session], the conversation abruptly changed from ' never going to 
happen' to 'when it happens,'" said Jodi James, executive director of 
the Florida Cannabis Action Network, a Melbourne-based nonprofit 
pushing to reform the state's marijuana laws. "That wouldn't have 
happened without South Florida."

Don't expect medical marijuana to be legalized this year. Seismic 
shifts don't come so soon. But after years of stagnation, cannabis 
advocates see something they hardly recognize on the horizon: life.

And it has a distinctly South Florida vibe.

The two Democrats floating pro-medical marijuana bills in the state 
House and Senate are from Plantation and Lake Worth.

The 70-year-old former drug smuggler who launched a "Silver Tour" to 
recruit Florida's powerful senior voting bloc to the medical 
marijuana bandwagon hails from West Palm Beach.

The new head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana 
Laws is a longtime activist and unapologetic pot smoker who has 
practiced law in Fort Lauderdale since 1976.

And another of the effort's most recognizable faces, a Fort 
Lauderdale stockbroker, is one of only four people in the country who 
have been prescribed medical marijuana by the federal government as 
part of a now-defunct program.

"South Florida is the most liberal part of the state," said Robert 
Platshorn, the father of the Silver Tour and its 30-minute 
infomercial, "Should Grandma Smoke Pot?" So it makes sense, he said, 
that it would be leading a considerably liberal movement.

But for too long, Platshorn said, the movement has suffered from a 
lack of serious funding, adding that National Organization for the 
Reform of Marijuana Laws officials long refused to spend money in 
Florida, choosing states where the political prospects were more promising.

The game has since changed, with last week's announcement that 
prominent Orlando attorney and Democratic fundraising heavyweight 
John Morgan will lead a statewide effort to pass a constitutional 
amendment legalizing medical marijuana.

"Now that John Morgan has come into the fight, people with real 
money, that's never happened. I think Republicans will wake up and 
pay a lot more attention now that big players are involved," 
Platshorn said. "One way or another, it'll be on the ballot in 2014."

Others are more tempered, and prepared for a long slog.

"I've always viewed this as a long-term project," said Sen. Jeff 
Clemens, D-Lake Worth, who is going for his third bite at the 
legislative apple, after two previous bills he filed as a state 
representative were deemed dead almost on arrival.

This year's proposal - modeled after laws in New Jersey and Colorado 
and sponsored in the House by Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation - 
would allow patients with specified medical conditions and under a 
doctor's care to possess 4 ounces of dried cannabis or eight 
marijuana plants. Clemens is optimistic it'll at least get an airing 
in committee this year.

"Attitudes are changing more and more every year," Clemens said. "And 
we're seeing that in the polling."

One poll in particular is being bandied about with vigor. In late 
February, as lawmakers prepared to converge on Tallahassee for the 
2013 legislative session, People United for Medical Marijuana, a PAC 
pushing for a 2014 ballot referendum, released a poll showing 70 
percent of Floridians support legalizing medicinal pot for qualified patients.

The growing public acceptance- among Floridians of all political 
stripes and demographics, but largely Democrats in South Florida - 
comes amid a budding national movement. Medical marijuana is now 
legal in 18 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., and Colorado and 
Washington state legalized its recreational use in November.

"So many people have come to realize that, first and foremost, this 
is medicine," James said. "Colorado and Washington discovered that, 
once they controlled it and regulated it, the sky didn't fall and 
public safety actually increased."

There are plenty who dispute those assertions - law enforcement 
officials, antidrug coalitions and parent groups among them - and 
their political heft and conviction mean pro-pot proponents still 
face an uphill battle.

"At this point, it doesn't appear they have enough substantiated 
research to classify [marijuana] as a medicine," said Danielle 
Branciforte, Florida coordinator for the organization, Students 
Against Destructive Decisions, echoing the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration's position.

Branciforte also repeated commonly held public safety concerns: that 
legalizing even medicinal marijuana would make the drug more widely 
available and easier to abuse, by adults and teens alike. And because 
it can't be detected in roadside sobriety tests, she said, "a lot 
more people would be getting away with driving under those kinds of 
influences."

Jeff Kadel, executive director of the Palm Beach County Substance 
Awareness Coalition, called the legalization effort "a sham."

"The truth of the matter is they just want to legalize it, so they 
wheel out Grandma and say, 'You can't take away her medicine,'" Kadel 
said, citing surveys that show the campaign to legitimize pot use 
already has had an effect on kids. "Just the idea that it's good for 
you is reducing their perception of its risks.

"There's no such thing as medical marijuana," he added. "Marijuana is 
not a medicine."

Irvin Rosenfeld heartily disagrees. For 31 years, the Fort Lauderdale 
stockbroker has been smoking up to a dozen marijuana cigarettes a 
day, courtesy of the federal government. His prescription, mailed to 
him every 25 days, comes by way of a "compassionate care" pilot 
project started in the Carter administration and shut down to new 
patients by President George H.W. Bush. Rosenfeld is one of four left 
of the original 13 patients allowed in the program.

In the years since, the 60-year-old said, the cannabis joints have 
made the pain from a lifelong bone tumor condition much more manageable.

"If [marijuana is] really that bad, explain me," he said. "I'm not a 
criminal. I'm a patient."

Jeff Kennedy also defends the drug's medicinal benefits. The Boynton 
Beach man had for years been quietly growing his own marijuana plants 
behind an 8-foot concrete fence in his backyard, saying it helped 
ease the pain from injuries he sustained in a gardening accident. 
After six weeks of daily tokes on his self-prescribed cannabis 
joints, he was able to cut his $1,200-a-month opiate intake in half, he said.

Then in 2009, police officers responding to his call about a possible 
break-in spotted the plants and arrested him on drug trafficking 
charges. An 18-month battle ensued, but in the hours before trial, 
Kennedy said prosecutors dropped all charges, saying the chances of 
winning were too steep.

Like Rosenfeld, Kennedy has been telling his story ever since in 
hopes of seeing medical marijuana legalized.

"I think Sen. Clemens is a hero," the 54-year-old said.

James, of the Florida Cannabis Action Network, is spending her days 
this session lobbying on behalf of the pro-pot forces in Tallahassee, 
saying it's people like Kennedy who bring clarity to the haze over 
medical marijuana.

"Patients like Jeff Kennedy can't be forgotten," she said. "Even 
people who are staunch allies of law enforcement don't want to see 
patients like Jeff get caught up in the justice system."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom