Florida’s Governor and Surgeon General continue to offer dire warnings about a constitutional amendment that would legalize adult-use marijuana beyond the current medical framework.
On Friday at the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Joe Ladapo, the state’s top doc, issued familiar claims about the “corporate carveout” amendment, the impacts of marijuana on quality of life for adults and “kids” alike, the pecuniary motivations of pot companies, while adding new material to a road-tested repertoire.
DeSantis noted that there are already a “helluva lot of weed stores in Florida,” adding that “doctors” involved in medical marijuana think Amendment 3 “will be bad for that.”
MMJ patients must now get a doctor’s certification, often after brief consultations to ascertain eligibility.
DeSantis also voiced concerns that the amendment does not facilitate “freedom” by not having a home-growing provision, saying, “You cannot grow your own under this amendment.”
“Why not? If this is about freedom, you (could grow) in your backyard … that would be the basic building block of freedom. They don’t want you to do that because they want to force a business relationship with their cartel.”
The Governor also said the “price would get higher” in a recreational framework, leading to “a dramatic expansion” of the black market, saying the same thing happened in Colorado.
Regarding law enforcement members who endorsed the amendment, DeSantis said most sheriffs aren’t behind it.
He said about pro-weed sheriffs: “You should figure out why they’re doing that because I guarantee you there’s more to that story.”
As has been the case at every event highlighting his position on this pot push, the Governor did not mention Donald Trump being in favor of the amendment.
Ladapo, who confessed that he “didn’t get enough sleep last night” and therefore “not all the systems are firing yet” to begin his remarks, said he had no issue with people using marijuana “privately in their homes” but that “people are being preyed upon” with the marketing of the “grotesque” amendment.
“It’s not about freedom,” the St. Petersburg resident said. “It’s about enslavement.”
Ladapo’s Department of Health administers the medical marijuana program, which has certificates of analysis saying what is in the product, but suggested the same companies privileged by the current setup that favors multistate operators may have nefarious intentions for recreational products.
“The marijuana that’s available now has much higher levels of THC, and heaven knows what else these guys are doing when they have been when they’ve been sort of specializing the type of crop that grows and they sell,” the Surgeon General said.
Ladapo also said he hoped the CEO of one of the state’s marijuana companies (presumably Kim Rivers of Trulieve) didn’t have children, given her faulty understanding of gummies demonstrated during a TV hit this week.
“Do you not have kids? Just you know, when a kid sees something that looks like a gummy, is that kid going to look and see whether it’s shaped like a star, or does it just look like a gummy, right? I don’t know if she has children or not. I’ve never met her. I hope she doesn’t.”
The Florida Chamber notes that only three states have passed weed legalization with more than 60% support, the minimum approval in Florida, and he didn’t want his state to become the fourth.
“This is a total gimmick,” Chamber CEO Mark Wilson said. “This is a total scam.”
DeSantis remarked that states with weed legalization, like California, have “hemorrhaged” businesses, linking a lack of a rec market to the state’s fiscal “surplus.”
The Governor suggested, based on a political trip to Nevada where he smelled cannabis in a hotel, that a legal product in Florida could lower tourist interest in a Sunshine State vacation.
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