United For Care: Keep Signing Medical Marijuana Petitions

United For Care, a campaign run by People United For Medical Marijuana, released the following statement after the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments from the attorney general's office and People United:

"Today, at the Supreme Court, United for Care's attorney, Dean John Mills, pushed back on the false and outlandish arguments made by the attorney general's office. The AG's positions against the petition boiled down to two main concepts, both patently and demonstrably untrue: 1) that the language would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for literally any condition, regardless of whether it is debilitating, and 2) that the petition sends mixed signals about marijuana's legality under federal law.

"The petition language is clear: Doctors MUST certify that the condition they are prescribing for is debilitating to the patient. It also explicitly warns the voters that nothing in the amendment allows a violation of federal law.(It should be noted that 20 states and the District of Columbia have already legalized medical marijuana, and 82 percent of Florida voters want it.)"

United For Care also sounded confident that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of putting the constitutional amendment on the ballot for next year, but urged voters to keep signing their names on the petition to get medical marijuana on the ballot.

"While we have confidence that the court will rule in our favor, we can't wait for its decision. We have to collect all the petitions we need within the next 30 days," read the statement.

If the Florida Supreme Court does allow the amendment on the ballot next November, People United would still need to gather more than 683,000 petition signatures by Feb. 1. People United says it has about 500,000 signed petitions, but less than half have been verified.