Medical marijuana
Medical marijuana activists want smokable product option
activists gather in Orlando and other Florida cities to call on Gov. Rick Scott to drop state appeals and allow patients to smoke and grow their own marijuana plants.
Medical marijuana activists gathered in Orlando on Wednesday to call on Gov. Rick Scott to drop state appeals and allow patients to smoke and grow pot.
The rallies, also held in Tallahassee and West Palm Beach, came a week after an appellate court refused to allow smokable medical marijuana while a legal fight initiated by Orlando attorney John Morgan makes its way through the courts.
Morgan, acting on behalf of ALS patient Cathy Jordan, sued the state last year after the Legislature passed laws banning the sale of smoking products, citing a health risk. Morgan said the smoking ban violated the constitutional amendment that allowed medical pot after being approved by more than 70 percent of voters in 2016.
Rallygoers also wanted Scott to drop the state’s appeal of a ruling to allow Tampa cancer patient Joe Redner to be able to grow and juice his own medical cannabis.
“Let’s get Scott to go ahead and drop all this stuff,” said James O’Malley of St. Cloud, one of about 40 people at the Orlando rally at Lake Eola. “Seventy percent of the people wanted people to be able to smoke. Let’s get it.”
Mike Farley of Lakeland said he had been twice addicted to opioids he took for chronic pain before he used cannabis. Les Hodge of Orlo Vista said he hadn’t smoked marijuana for 20 years before he started again to help with his chronic pain.
Brett Puffenbarger, a Marine Corps veteran from Altamonte Springs and spokesman for the veterans group “Buds for Vets,” talked about how medical marijuana has helped his fellow vets deal with pain and PTSD.
“A lot of the time we’re afraid to be out in public, a lot of the time we’re afraid to say what we’re going through,” he said. “[But] cannabis is an answer to a lot of that.”
He said veterans should be vocal in their support of smoking and growing medical marijuana.
“If we have to be that group that stands up and goes, ‘Hey,
we did something to be able to do this,’ I think we should do that,’’ he said.
Nate Jurewicz of Land O’ Lakes, a member of the group “Christians for Cannabis,” said he was a Trump supporter and Republican and never voted for a Democrat.
“But I’m really going to have a tough time deciding” on whether to vote for Scott in his U.S. Senate race against Democrat Bill Nelson. “At this point, if he doesn’t get rid of that appeal of those cases, I just don’t think I’m going to be able to vote for him.”
State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith and state house candidate Anna Eskamani, who are both Democrats, also spoke at the event and stressed that medical marijuana wasn’t a partisan issue.
“It’s about right and wrong,” Smith said.
Asked why Scott was pursuing the appeals, Mara Gambineri, a spokeswoman for Scott’s office, said “medical marijuana is available to patients across the state. There is even a home delivery option.
“The Legislature outlined how to implement this law and more than 130,000 patients have access to this treatment by more than a thousand doctors,” she added.
“It’s disingenuous for this political protest to say otherwise.”