Florida voters are casting their ballots on legalizing medical marijuana for a second time in 2016, but advocates of Amendment 2 say this time they’re doing things differently than they did in 2014, and opponents of the measure should be worried.
In 2014, almost as soon as People United for Medical Marijuana unveiled its proposal for a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana, the proposal turned controversial. It became the center of multi-million-dollar campaigns from both sides of the issue. But on the "against" side, Drug Free Florida prevailed, blowing up the amendment through vicious attack ads warning Floridians of the “dangerous” consequences if the amendment passed. DFF's intense campaign paid off, and Amendment 2 fell just short of the 60 percent necessary to pass.
This year medical marijuana supporters are back with a vengeance and, they say, a winning strategy.
“[The campaign] is different in many senses [this year,]” United For Care campaign manager Ben Pollara told Sunshine State News.
Pollara said pro-medical pot groups are far more organized this go-round, and it’s been to their benefit.
“We have a little bit better idea of what we're doing,” he said.
Part of knowing how to run this year’s campaign included tightening up amendment language to include specific medical conditions for medical marijuana, which advocates say closed the loopholes opponents sharply criticized in 2014.
The revisions, Pollara said, have had a greater effect on bolstering support for the amendment. He noted widespread endorsements for the amendment, this time from several newspaper editorial boards around the state, many of which two years ago refused to hitch their wagons to the amendment because the language was too broad.
Another thing working toward Amendment 2’s advantage: The opposition, Pollara says, isn’t quite as put together as it was when it walloped the initiative with attack ads.
“The opposition seems to have gone the other way where their campaign is not as organized or robust as it was two years ago,” he told SSN.
Drug Free Florida, the group responsible for much of the opposition against Amendment 2, says most of their strategy has remained the same. Mailers, debates and TV spots have all honed in on the same message they promoted in 2014: that legalizing medical marijuana would open up door to anyone, anywhere to get the drug.
Dr. Jessica Spencer, a substance abuse counselor who acted as an educator for Drug Free Florida in 2014 and still does in 2016, said not much has changed about her approach. She still believes Amendment 2 is “deplorable” and has to explain the dangers to lots of voters who don’t understand its true complexity.
“It's still a terrible amendment ... people don't get it,” she told SSN. “They hear the word ‘medical’ and they think this is something you purchase at a pharmacy -- a prescription.”
That’s not the case, says Spencer, who explained that in many other states where medical marijuana is legalized, the rate for abuse is incredibly high.
Supporters of the measure, she said, are unfairly targeting voters with an emotional ploy rather than with scientific reasoning.
“This is predatory,” she explained. “It preys on people’s emotions. People don't want others to suffer. [The amendment] preys on our ignorance … takes the moral ground from conservatives and appeals to people's hearts.”
Drug Free Florida has relied heavily on power donors like Mel Sembler and Sheldon Adelson, who each have emptied their pockets of millions of dollars to put medical pot away for good.
The group hasn’t raised as much money as it did in 2014. United For Care has outraised DFF with contributions from smaller donors. In October the campaign for medical pot raised nearly $800,000, while Drug Free Florida brought in less $20,000.
Over time, Drug Free Florida has spent millions of dollars in ads against the amendment, but supporters of medical marijuana say it hasn’t quite lived up to the vitriol of the 2014 campaign.
“I think in order to defeat us this time, they would need to spend a lot more money than they did last time and they are spending less money,” Pollara told SSN.
Drug Free Florida has also suffered setbacks which have outraged voters. On Sunday, a vendor error caused robocalls to go out between midnight and 7 a.m., infuriating hundreds of Florida voters.
Yet, in spite of not having as much money on hand to run the same campaign, Drug Free Florida says handling pot via ballot simply isn’t the right route to take for the safety of Floridians.
“It's a slippery slope,” said Dr. Spencer. “This is not how we do medicine. We don't do medicine by ballot initiative.”
Recent polls have shown the proposal receiving over 70 percent approval from likely voters, a number well above the threshold needed to pass, but supporters of the amendment shouldn't be too quick to celebrate those numbers — medical marijuana was polling even higher (over 80 percent) before Amendment 2 hit the ballot in 2014.
Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.
