Pubdate: Wed, 05 Nov 2014
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2014 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Dan Sweeney
Page: 1A

MEDICAL MARIJUANA AMENDMENT FAILS, NEEDED 60 PERCENT APPROVAL

After proponents and opponents spent more than $10 million combined, 
after months of campaigning across the state, Florida's medical 
marijuana amendment has been defeated.

Amendment 2 barely missed the 60 percent needed to pass, coming in at 
about 58 percent.

In July, a Quinnipiac poll found that 88 percent of Floridians 
approved of medical marijuana.

How Florida got from 88 to 58 is a long, expensive journey.

Before the backing of multimillionaire lawyer John Morgan, before the 
initiative to get Amendment 2 on the ballot, before there was ever 
any organized opposition, People United for Medical Marijuana got its 
start in March 2009, founded by a homeschooling housewife named Kim Russell.

Over the next four years, the organization raised just over$100,000. 
But in March 2013, the Morgan & Morgan law firm dropped $100,000 into 
People United's account, an event that could mark the unofficial 
beginning of People United as the organization that put medical 
marijuana on the map of Florida.

For the next few months, the group that began as a one-woman crusade 
transformed into a full-blown political campaign with deep-pocketed 
donors, coordinated messaging and poll after poll taken on the subject.

In December 2013 and January 2014, campaign finance records show, the 
Morgan firm spent millions on a petition drive to get enough 
signatures to put Amendment 2 on the ballot. A few other wealthy 
donors contributed large sums, and hundreds of small donations came 
in from across the state, a few even from around the country.

People United got their signatures. Then they got taken to court.

State Attorney General Pam Bondi argued before the Florida Supreme 
Court that Amendment 2 was poorly worded and would result in de facto 
legalization of marijuana. The court disagreed.

"We hold that the voters are given fair notice as to the chief 
purpose and scope of the proposed amendment, which is to allow a 
restricted use of marijuana for certain debilitating medical 
conditions," the court wrote in its advisory opinion on Jan. 27.

After that, everything looked free and clear. The polling, which had 
always been favorable, well in excess of the 60 percent needed to 
win, only became more lopsided.

But on May 29, Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the 
15th-richest man in the world according to Forbes, had poured $2.5 
million into a political action committee called Drug Free Florida. 
The PAC had been hastily assembled in March with $100,000 in seed 
money from Mel Sembler, the founder of Drug Free America. The new 
committee was co-chaired by Carlton Turner, a former drug czar under 
Ronald Reagan who once declared that smoking marijuana turns straight 
people gay.

The ads, decrying Amendment 2 for being rife with loopholes that 
would open the doors to a joint in every hand and a dispensary on 
every corner, began in earnest in early September. Support for 
medical marijuana in Florida fell precipitously, so that less than a 
week before the election, People United claimed its internal polls 
had support at 61 or 62 percent, while outside polls had support as 
low as 50 percent.

By Election Day, Adelson had spent $5.5 million on Drug Free Florida.

The Morgan law firm had spent millions on the other side, but the 
vast majority of that went to the petition drive to get the 
initiative on the ballot.

People United starting running television ads a few weeks before Nov. 
4, but it was too little, too late.

An hour after polls closed, the percentage of yes votes for Amendment 
2 crept slowly upward, but stalled out before it reached 60.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom