Gov. Ron DeSantis travels the state trying to persuade undecided voters to oppose legalizing recreational cannabis in Florida
While Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to barnstorm the state advocating for Floridians to oppose the proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize recreational cannabis, recent polls indicate the measure could win the 60% vote required for passage next week.
Then what happens?
A panel of people who work in and around the cannabis industry and were on the ground when the Legislature implemented Florida’s medical marijuana amendment in 2017 gathered at the Barrymore Hotel in downtown Tampa on Wednesday night to discuss what should happen, and what most likely will happen, if Floridians approve Amendment 3 next Tuesday.
“They will immediately move to pass Sen. [Joe] Gruters’ bill, but it won’t be Gruters bill,” said former Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes, who represented St. Petersburg and other parts of Pinellas County from 2012-2022.
“They’re not going to let Sen. Gruters pass that bill. It’ll be somebody else who gets to pass the bill. And they’ll have to put a tax on it. And then they’ll be fighting about where the money goes.”
The “Gruters bill” is the proposal already filed by Sarasota County Republican state Sen. Joe Gruters that would ban smoking in all public places in Florida, a response to the criticism offered by DeSantis that passage of the amendment would contaminate the entire state with the smell of marijuana — something he says has happened in places that have legalized recreational use such as New York City.
DeSantis and other opponents contend the Legislature can’t amend constitutional amendments because it wouldn’t be consistent with the language of the initiative.
That’s news to Brandes, who sponsored the legislation in 2019 that implemented 2018’s Amendment 4, which was designed to automatically restore voting rights to felons to include the fact that they were required to pay off all outstanding fines and fees owed from their sentence.
“It’s simply not true, and [DeSantis] knows it,” Brandes said.
“We’re at the point right now where people are just saying crazy things in order to try to sway a handful of votes. It isn’t going to work. This is a question of when it passes, not if it passes, and then we’ll have to work to get the law the right way. So I think there’s no doubt there are undefined terms in this bill. The Legislature will have an opportunity just like [2018’s] Amendment 4 to amend those terms.”
$431 million in Florida cannabis revenue?
Then there is the revenue question. Although DeSantis dismisses advocates’ claims in television ads that those proceeds could go towards law enforcement and schools, the fact is that passage of the amendment is likely to produce hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenues for the state.
The nonpartisan Florida Financial Impact Estimating Conference predicted in July that, based on other states’ experience, retail sales of non-medical marijuana in Florida could generate at least $195.6 million annually in state and local taxes once the retail market is fully operational. And that it could go as high as $431 million.
That means there would have to be an implementing bill from the Legislature to determine the tax rate for recreational cannabis and where those revenues would go.
Brandes predicts the GOP-controlled Legislature that has seen only one of its members (Gruters) come out in support of the amendment likely will “react pretty violently during the first year, and they could stick a 100% tax on it. We don’t know how this is going to play out.”
Roz McCarthy, CEO of Minorities for Medical Marijuana, argued it would be up to those who work in the cannabis industry as well as members of the general public to get in front of lawmakers during this period, not only to advocate about where cannabis revenues should go, but also for other policy changes.
“If we want to make sure that all of that tax revenue is not going towards one area vs. another, if you want to see communities that have been disproportionately impacted are recipients of these resources, then it is to be able to be engaged with our lawmakers having conversations, negotiating right now, being prepared,” she said. “I’m working under the assumption that this is going to pass. So I’m already talking to lawmakers.”
Arrests for cannabis in Florida
Opponents of Amendment 3 like DeSantis have played down that passage of the law would eliminate the arrests of individuals who possess small amounts of cannabis. But criminal defense attorney Josh Monteiro, who is Black, said he represents “a lot of people who look like me who are being locked up for marijuana charges.”
The Tampa Bay Times reported in July that prosecutors throughout Florida brought 16,000 charges against people for possession of small amounts of cannabis in 2023.
Monteiro hopes decriminalization would clear up incongruities in how local law enforcement interprets probable cause when dealing with medical marijuana patients. “The biggest problem is that there’s a disconnect between the different districts in Florida,” he said.
“If you’re down in Miami, they can’t do this. So, if you’re driving in Miami and you get pulled over and a cop says, ‘I smell marijuana,’ he can’t get you out of your car and search you. But if you keep on driving and you get to that next big county we all know about, right? Mr. Grady Judd’s [Polk] County. They definitely want to pull you out of the car and you probably are going to get a resist on top of it for just arguing with them,” referring to a resisting-arrest charge.
If the amendment passes, the state needs to do a better job informing the public about what laws will be in place, McCarthy said.
“I’m hoping that there are going to be resources in place to educate consumers on what does it mean like you can’t smoke in public places, that you have to have [products] packaged correctly, because if you don’t, you will have these loopholes and you will see disproportionately people of color still going to jail.”
Tampa attorney Michael Minardi was in Tallahassee 2017 after Floridians approved the constitutional amendment approving medical marijuana when he watched the drug czar from Colorado testify in front of state lawmakers that it would be crucial that the state provide education to the public about the new laws being implemented, he said.
“And that’s one thing that our Department of Health has not done scintilla of, so, realistically, unfortunately, I think it’s up to the organizations in the state like Suncoast NORML [National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws] to provide that education for people because it’s a huge problem,” Minardi said.
In approved, Amendment 3 would allow individuals to possess up to 3 ounces of recreational cannabis. It needs 60% approval to become law.
This article was republished from the Florida Phoenix under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. You can read the original version here.
