Attorney supports making pot legal
Morgan says he’s been encouraged by leaders with ‘deep pockets’
Orlando lawyer John Morgan on Tuesday backed a campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida through a constitutional amendment in 2020, declaring that “I am too old to care” about opposition to the proposal.
“I believe that #marijuana should be legal!!” Morgan wrote on his Twitter account. “I think we have time and I think there is money to get it done. I already have the minimum wage signatures. Let’s do this maybe, forget Tallahassee! #ForThePeople - #PotDaddy”
In June, Morgan tweeted a different tune: “I support the full legalization of #marijuana. However, my plate is full w/ a living wage for Florida’s working poor. I can only slay one dragon at a time.” What changed?
“I was approached by industry leaders who have the deep deep pockets to do it and do it fast,” Morgan said in an email Tuesday.
A strong majority of voters — 65% to 30% — said they wanted to see marijuana legalization in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll in June, a showing the pollsters called “an all-time high in the state” on the marijuana issue.
Two years ago, the same poll found 56% in favor and 41% opposed.
But, Morgan added, “It will still be hard.”
The Florida Sheriffs Association, which opposed medical marijuana in 2016, “remains opposed to the full legislation of recreational marijuana,” said FSA spokeswoman Nanette Schimpf. “The legalization of marijuana would be contrary to the interests of the public health, safety and welfare and would undermine the quality of life of the citizens of the state of Florida.”
The Florida Medical Association, which also opposed the medical pot initiative, did not return a request for comment.
How the campaign will be structured is also yet to be determined, Morgan said.
A new political committee, Make It Legal Florida, based out of Tampa, registered with the state last week.
The group Sensible Florida has been gathering petitions for an amendment legalizing marijuana for adults over the age of 21 since 2016, having collected more than 79,000 so far.
But Morgan said he wasn’t sure how he would move forward with the campaign, whether through one of those existing groups or a new group of his own.
While the details are still being worked out, Morgan did have one prediction for the amendment.
“It will pass in a landslide,” he said.
The key, Morgan said, “is that the industry will use their financial resources to move it. And it has to move fast. And we are lucky we have one Cabinet member who will be all in: Nikki Fried.”
Fried, the only statewide elected Democrat in the state, won a slim victory for agriculture commissioner in 2018 thanks in part to her crossover appeal to Republican and libertarian voters because of her strong support for medical marijuana.
Fried has not commented on the recreational pot amendment. Her office did not return a request for comment Tuesday.
Morgan jumping into the fray to legalize pot had been long in coming and has featured a lot of twists and turns.
He bankrolled much of the campaign to legalize medical marijuana in the state, which passed with 71% of the vote in 2016, but has gone back and forth since about whether recreational pot was the next step.
After a brief flirtation with running for governor, Morgan had said he was solely focused on his
efforts to place an amendment on the 2020 ballot that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
In May 2018, he said he
didn’t think he would need to initiate a referendum to legalize recreational pot because “all the dominoes will be falling nationally in four years.”
But in June 2018 he said he would go for it, saying he learned from his 2014 and 2016 medical marijuana campaigns that it was necessary to launch such campaigns during presidential elections and not midterm years with lower turnout.
Until Tuesday, his energy had been tied up in his minimum wage initiative.
Last month he announced he had gathered more than a million signatures for that campaign, far more than the required amount. The state has yet to certify them all, however.