Colorado Becomes First State to License Sale of Marijuana for Recreational Use

Colorado on Monday became the first state in the country to issue special licenses for recreational-marijuana businesses.

After weeks of scrutiny of applications, officials at the state's Marijuana Enforcement Division slipped 348 approved licenses into the mail and sent them out to stores, product-makers and cultivation facilities. Those businesses could begin producing and selling marijuana to anyone over 21 on Jan. 1, assuming the businesses also have the approval of their local governments.

The number includes 136 marijuana shops, most of which are in Denver.

Marijuana advocates hailed the finalized licenses as a watershed moment for Colorado's legalization of cannabis, which voters approved in November 2012.

"Colorado will be the first state to have a legal marijuana market for adults," said Mason Tvert, a Denver-based spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project and one of the leaders of Colorado's legalization push. "We expect it to set an example for other states."

Opponents of legalization, though, said the licenses are another step in what they fear is an increasingly disastrous pot policy.

"We're seeing ... a massive marijuana industry growing before our eyes," said Kevin Sabet, who is with a national anti-marijuana group called Project SAM. "I hope it's not going to be too late before we realize that the road we're on is going to produce a massive public health problem and public safety problem in Colorado."

State marijuana regulators have previously said they would make a decision on the hundreds of recreational cannabis business applications submitted in October by the end of the year. And it appears they denied very few — if any — applications in doing so.

At the end of October, the state had received 136 applications for recreational marijuana shops, 28 applications for marijuana-infused products companies and 174 applications for marijuana-growing facilities. More applications trickled in after the October deadline, and state officials said some of those might also be acted upon by Jan. 1.

The approved licenses sent out Monday are for 136 stores, 31 products companies, 178 growing facilities and three marijuana-testing labs. Julie Postlethwait, a spokeswoman for the Marijuana Enforcement Division, said she couldn't confirm whether any applications have been denied.

Other state officials praised the division for meeting tight deadlines in issuing the licenses. Amendment 64, the measure that legalized marijuana use and limited possession in Colorado for people over 21, gives the state only 90 days to make a decision on an application.

"It has taken an enormous team effort to be able to issue state licenses in the timelines identified in Amendment 64," Barbara Brohl, the head of Colorado's Department of Revenue, said in a statement.

Because would-be pot shops face significant challenges in obtaining local licenses, the state's approval on Monday does not mean that 136 recreational marijuana stores will be open on Jan. 1.

For instance, in Denver — where the state has signed off on applications for 102 recreational marijuana stores — only eight stores have so far cleared all the hurdles in the local licensing process.

And not every business that receives the necessary state and local OKs before the end of the year will be selling recreational marijuana on Jan. 1.

Norton Arbelaez, co-owner of RiverRock Wellness dispensaries in Denver, said he does not plan to add recreational sales until probably mid-February because of all the uncertainty in the new market.

"There are just so many questions in terms of pricing, is there going to be scarcity, or some kind of lack of product in January that is going to lead to the price of the product doubling or tripling?" he said. "There's a lot of unknowns."

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold

Staff writer Eric Gorski contributed to this report.

Hey Florida - Medical Marijuana Works Says Irvin Rosenfeld

Fort Lauderdale stockbroker 'living proof' medical marijuana works

After 130,000 joints and 31 years in federal program, Irvin Rosenfeld backs Florida amendment drive

Irvin Rosenfeld is Florida's only legal pot smoker. His marijuana provider? The federal government. Since 1982, as part of an experimental drug program, Rosenfeld has received a monthly tin with 300 fat joints – about nine ounces – grown by the feds on a farm at the University of Mississippi.

Rosenfeld, 60, a Fort Lauderdale stockbroker with a painful chronic bone tumor disorder, carries a prescription bag with his marijuana cigarettes to work. When I visited him at his office last week, he took a hit off a smokeless vapor pipe, which he sometimes uses when the market gets hectic. But he prefers smoking, which he says is more beneficial in getting the plant's full medicinal effects.

Every few hours, he ducks into a parking garage, greets the standard tobacco junkies puffing away during their smoke breaks, and lights up.

With the Florida Supreme Court about to decide whether a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana can appear on the November 2014 ballot, I figured it would a good time to catch up with Rosenfeld. Ask him if medical marijuana works, and he says, "I'm living proof."

"I consider myself a very healthy disabled person – a productive member of society who's able to work every day in a very stressful business," Rosenfeld told me.

Marijuana doesn't make him high, he says, but provides pain management without the harsh side effects of narcotics. When I first met him in 2005, he called pot "a godsend for me." After 31 years and more than 130,000 joints, Rosenfeld said this week that his lungs and mind are clear. Every six months, Rosenfeld and his sponsoring physician send a report to the feds about his treatment.

Rosenfeld should be Exhibit A in the fight for medical marijuana, yet organizers of Florida's petition drive to get the amendment on the 2014 ballot haven't reached out to him. Rosenfeld said he has called John Morgan, the Tampa attorney spearheading the effort, three times and hasn't heard back.

"I don't feel slighted so much as disappointed that they don't use my expertise with everything I've been through," Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld, who favors full legalization of marijuana, said he supports the amendment with reservations. He said it would be better if the issue didn't have to go the constitutional amendment route, but realizes there's little hope of Florida legislators taking direct action. Medical marijuana bills failed to get any hearings last session. If the amendment reaches the ballot, it will need 60 percent voter approval to pass.

Rosenfeld is one of four surviving patients in the federal government's Compassionate Investigative New Drug progam, which began in 1976 and stopped accepting new patients in 1992. Not many people realize that Rosenfeld or the program exist. Especially since the same federal government that grows and ships Rosenfeld's supply still officially classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug with "no accepted medical use," on par with heroin and LSD.

"It's very frustrating," Rosenfeld says of the feds' inconsistency. Medical marijuana is now legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia, in direct conflict with federal law. A court battle along the lines of the gay-marriage fight seems inevitable.

"We trust our physicians to make decisions every day when it comes to prescribing narcotics," Rosenfeld said. "They should be able to do the same with marijuana."

Poll: 82 Percent Favor Medical Marijuana In Florida

If a medical marijuana initiative makes Florida’s ballot next year, it could pass with an astonishing 82 percent of the vote, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday that finds voters also favor outright legalization as well.

Support for the proposed constitutional amendment is strong among voters of every political stripe, age and income level, with independents lending the most support: 88 percent, the poll shows.

The overall 82-16 percent support for medical marijuana is the biggest to date. The previous high-point for Florida approval was about 70 percent in a poll taken earlier this year by the medical-marijuana advocacy group, People United for Medical Marijuana.

There are some differences in wording between the initiative and the Quinnipiac poll; the amendment says doctors can "recommend" marijuana, the poll asks if a doctor should be able to "prescribe" it.

Still, medical marijuana is clearly popular. And marijuana legalization is becoming more-liked as well, albeit narrowly.

Nearly half of Florida voters favor it — 48 percent — while 46 percent oppose pot legalization for personal use. That’s within the margin of error, but it’s a leading indicator of a shift in public opinion. Support for legalization is again strongest among independents (57-37 percent), and then Democrats (55-39 percent).

But Republicans are opposed 30-64 percent. Contrast that with GOP voter support for medical marijuana is solid: 70-26 percent.

One early poll and analysis from People United found that medical-marijuana was so popular that it could alter the course of the governor’s race.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott opposes medical marijuana; Democrats Charlie Crist and Nan Rich support the initiative, which is funded and led by Crist’s employer, trial attorney John Morgan, a Democratic donor. A major Florida Republican donor, former ambassador Mel Sembler, is opposing the measure through his Drug Free America Foundation.

In the race for governor, the Quinnipiac poll found Scott trailed Crist poll by 7 percentage points, 40-47 percent. That’s an improvement for Scott, however, compared to the last Quinnipiac Poll in June, when the governor trailed by 10 percentage points.

Since Quinnipiac’s last poll in June, Crist has lost some standing among independent voters. One possible reason: As soon as the former governor announced he was running for office, Scott began attacking him in television ads that began running a full year before the election.

As for medical marijuana’s fate, the proposed amendment — which takes 60 percent voter approval to pass in Florida — appears to be on an easy path to victory at the moment. But only if it makes the ballot.

The Florida legislative leaders and the state’s Attorney General want the state Supreme Court to block the measure from the ballot, saying the ballot summary is misleading and that it violates a rule that limits the scope of a constitutional amendment to a single subject. People United for Medical Marijuana, the advocacy group pushing the measure, say the criticisms are false.

“This poll shows yet again that Floridians overwhelmingly support a compassionate medical marijuana policy in Florida, despite the continued opposition of out-of-touch, Tallahassee politicians like Pam Bondi,” said Ben Pollara, treasurer for People United.

The Florida Supreme Court will hear the matter next month.

Even if it passes constitutional muster, People United needs to collect 683,149 verified voter signatures by February. People United has gathered 200,000 so far, of which more than 110,000 had been verified last month.

In November, Miami Beach voters approved a non-binding straw poll calling for medical marijuana by 64 percent.

A number of critics are starting to more actively denounce the measure in Florida.

Grady Judd, Polk County’s sheriff and the head of the Florida Sheriffs Association, likened marijuana to more dangerous drugs and pointed criticisms about the effectiveness of marijuana as medicine from the Florida Medical Association, American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

“Lawmakers and law enforcement have worked tirelessly to get Florida’s crime rate to its current 42-year low,” Judd said in a statement. “Let’s not roll back that progress by legalizing a drug with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Legalizing Marijuana: The Winners and the Losers

After toiling for decades in relative obscurity, the fight to legalize marijuana for recreational use in the United States is finally having its moment in the sun.

For the first time ever, a recent Gallup poll found a solid majority of Americans in favor of legalizing the drug—a 10-point swing from 2012. The Department of Justice recently said it won't interfere with Colorado and Washington , states whose citizens voted to legalize pot last year. Earlier this month, the city of Portland, Maine, as well as a trio of Michigan municipalities, followed suit and voted to permit recreational pot use.

Four decades after President Nixon declared the War on Drugs, the government's battle against marijuana may be beginning to subside. If the trend continues, it presents a massive business opportunity for people looking to get into the weed business without worrying about pesky drawbacks like getting arrested.

Legal marijuana, already a $1.4 billion industry, is one of the most rapidly expanding markets in the United States. A recent study by Arcview Market Research predicted the industry has the potential to reach over $10 billion within five years and experience growth outpacing that of smartphones.

Conversely, as with any major economic change, this growing acceptance—and possible full-scale legalization—has the potential to  disrupt a whole host of long-standing industries.

Here then is a guide to the winners and losers in the wild world of pot legalization:

Winners

Marijuana sellers

The most obvious profit center arising from the legalization of marijuana is the cultivation and sale of the product to consumers.

Since pot is currently outlawed at the federal level, it's difficult for economists to pin an exact figure on the size of the black market. However, Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron has estimated the overall size of the marijuana economy, which includes both illicit sales and legal ones made in the 21 states (including Washington, D.C.) that allow medical marijuana, at around $20 billion per year with the majority share going into the black market. A 2006 study out of George Mason University  put annual domestic cultivation at somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 million pounds.

Shifting that demand into the legal market presents an enormous opportunity—one that many people are already taking advantage of.

While Colorado voters approved a marijuana legalization initiative last year, the ban on recreational pot sales won't officially be lifted until the beginning of next year. The state has seen a rush of activity among ganjapreneurs filing for the requisite permits to register their operations. Colorado officials expect to see over 100 legal pot shops  open their doors on Jan. 1, 2014.

As the law stands, doing the actual growing and distribution has both pros and cons. ‟The fastest opportunity for profitability in some states centers on wholesale cultivation, whereas in other states vertically integrated cultivation and dispensary operations take the lead," notes the Arcview report. ‟However, these businesses often have the most restrictions on investors and carry the greatest risk of federal enforcement actions."

Ancillary businesses

Outside of growth and sale of the actual plant, the marijuana industry comprises a range of related products and services designed to assist consumers with everything from procuring weed to putting it in their bodies. For a long time, these ancillary businesses have been relegated to dark corners of the counterculture. The increasing legal acceptance of marijuana has the potential to broaden the demographics of those who regularly ingest the drug while simultaneously creating a more mature consumer market where users can be more discriminating in their choices.

One of the companies cashing in on this shift is Medbox (NASDAQOTH: MDBX  ) , a firm that builds automated weed vending machines. Medbox, which was recently the subject of a bruising investigation by the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation , saw its stock skyrocket from under $3 to nearly $100 following the marijuana-legalizing votes in Washington and Colorado. The price has since settled to around $20 per share.

Other businesses include the dispensary finder and strain review site Leafly,  and the handheld vaporizer the Pax Ploom. The latter is explicitly designed for tobacco use only, but it has managed to gather a sizable following among pot smokers. A review in Death and Taxes magazine recommended it as an ideal accoutrement  "for the executive stoner."

Wellness products

Over the course of the past 40 years of drug prohibition, black market growers have been under pressure to breed their products to become more and more potent. Stronger pot allows people to smoke less of it to achieve the same high. Therefore, suppliers need less space to transport the same monetary value of product. Operating under a prohibition, space is often at a premium because smaller physical loads make it easier to sneak packages past law enforcement undetected.

The downside of this THC ‟arms race" is that consumers who want marijuana products for reasons other than getting baked out of their skulls have been largely left in the dust. As regulations loosen, there's likely to be a corresponding increase in demand for non-psychotropic marijuana-based products targeted at a much different demographic than the stereotypical young, male pothead.

Take, for example, Seattle-based cosmetics company Cannabis Basics, which offers a line of skincare and beauty products. While the lip balms and body lotions sold by Cannabis Basics have virtually nothing to do with getting high, they can only be obtained through licensed clinics in states with approved medical marijuana. Products like these, ones that take advantage of marijuana's non-intoxicating aspects, are likely to expand into wider use if prohibitions are repealed.

Government coffers

Drug prohibition is expensive. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron told The Huffington Post that it's costing the U.S. government nearly $20 billion a year to keep marijuana illegal. To put that figure in perspective, NASA's budget for 2014 is $16.6 billion.

About half of that expenditure comes from direct government spending on law enforcement, but the rest is the result of lost tax revenue. In November, Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure imposing a 25% sales and excise tax on all marijuana legally sold in the state.

The Colorado vote showed the electorate's willingness to tax marijuana at the same time it resoundingly rejected a measure that would have hiked the state's income tax—indicating that levying sin taxes on legalized pot may prove a broadly acceptable solution for increasing government revenue.

The tax rate on marijuana imposed by Colorado may seem steep, but it could serve as a model for the rest of the country. A RAND Corporation study surmised that widespread legalization would result in an 80% drop in pot prices . As long as taxes don't push the cost of legal weed significantly over black market prices, there's little chance high taxes would push consumers into illicit channels.

Weed tourism

"As some states are legalizing marijuana and others there not, I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by the growth of the marijuana tourism industry," explained Betty Aldworth of the National Cannabis Industry Association. Denver-based My420Tours  offers tours of the Mile High City that founder Matt Brown likens to wine tasting tours of Northern California's Napa Valley, except for pot.

Losers

Private prisons & drug treatment centers

The prison-industrial complex is an approximately $3 billion per year industry that houses about one out of every 10 inmates in the country. The biggest private prison firm,Corrections Corporation of America earned $1.7 billion last year.

CCA's business is largely dependent on the number of people the government feels the need to lock up. ‟The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices, or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws," the company outlined in its 2010 annual report. ‟For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances...could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them."

Even so, the vast majority of the three-quarters of a million people arrested each year for marijuana possession never actually serve time in prison. Most are issued fines or put into some form of community supervision. Often that supervision comes in the form of drug treatment programs, which could also lose out if many of those court-ordered diversions evaporate due to fewer convictions.

Brewers & distilleries

Christian Groh and Brendan Kennedy of Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm operating exclusively within the marijuana industry, explain that legalization has the potential to do greater harm to companies selling certain already-legal drugs than others. ‟We've found that people don't substitute marijuana for cigarettes, but they do often substitute it for alcohol," explained Groh.

He noted that one of the ideas that sparked the creation of Privateer Holdings in the first place was as a means to attract investment from alcohol companies looking to hedge against any possible losses from increased pot consumption.

Since marijuana is still prohibited at the federal level, large corporate and financial players have stayed out of making direct investments in the pot field. However, alcohol producers could still easily make those investments if marijuana were to be made legal. This potential avenue for investment may be why direct opposition on this front has been less than some have expected. "We're not actually seeing the kind of resistance against legalization that many people assume coming from alcohol and pharmaceutical companies," explained Aldworth.

Law enforcement

In an interview with ABC News last year, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the nation, said that, ‟the law enforcement community is universally consistent in its opposition to legalizing pot, in the interest of public safety and public health."

While, as reason.com points out, there are some notable exceptions to that rule, law enforcement has been just about the largest single group fighting drug legalization in any of its forms.

This opposition is at least partially due to the drug war being a major funding source for local police departments across the country. One way this occurs is through asset forfeiture , where law enforcement officials confiscate and then sell items—such as automobiles—connected to drug crimes. According to the General Accounting Office, the Department of Justice gave almost a billion dollars raised through asset forfeiture to local police departments in 2011.

Critics argue this revenue-generation mechanism leads police departments to prioritize drug arrests over the investigation of other crimes; however, agencies also use the money to increase staffing and 

purchase new equipment that makes the communities they serve safer.

Medical marijuana dispensaries

In many cases, some of the most vocal opponents of full-scale legalization are the operators of medical marijuana dispensaries. The rationale behind this opposition isn't only that recreational legalization would depress prices and eat into medical dispensaries' market share. Medical marijuana dispensaries are, by definition, places where people go to get medicine. By legalizing pot and then slapping a large sin tax on it, the sense of marijuana as legitimate medicinal product that dispensary owners have worked for years to build, could evaporate.

 Politico reports that earlier this year, Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine joined a coalition to oppose a bill legalizing the possession of small quantities of marijuana for recreational use in the state.

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At this point, picking winners and losers is an act of speculation. No market as large as the United States has ever experimented with full-scale drug legalization, so there's no telling what the ultimate effects will be.

When the United States ratified the 21st Amendment in 1933 ending alcohol prohibition, voters and legislators had some idea of what lay ahed, but they had no way of seeing the wave of boozy innovation—some of it positive, some of it decidedly less so—that would wash over the country in the ensuing decades. If local, state, and federal governments decide to do something similar with marijuana, seeing precisely what businesses and regulators do with it may end up being the most exciting part of the whole endeavor.

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Is it time for the U.S. to legalize marijuana?

Is it high time for the federal government to legalize marijuana?

That's what pot activists are asking a day after Colorado voters approved a historic ballot measure to tax legal marijuana sales, and Portland, Me., became the first East Coast city to vote to legalize marijuana for adults.

In Colorado, about 65 percent of voters approved Proposition AA, establishing a 15 percent tax on the wholesale sale of marijuana for adult use, and a 10 percent sales tax on retail marijuana sales, in addition to standard state and local sales taxes. The Colorado Legislative Council estimates that the initiative will generate $70 million in annual tax revenue, some of which will be used to fund the state's public school construction program.

Meanwhile, voters in Portland, Me., overwhelmingly approved Question 1, eliminating all legal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana by adults 21 and older within city limits.

In Michigan, three cities — including Lansing — voted to decriminalize the use or possession of up to an ounce of marijuana on private property by anyone 21 years or older.

The Election Day pro-pot victories come on the heels of a national poll that found, for the first time ever, a majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

According to the Gallup survey released late last month, 58 percent of Americans favor legalization, up 10 percent in the last year.

“Whatever the reasons for Americans' greater acceptance of marijuana, it is likely that this momentum will spur further legalization efforts across the United States,” Gallup said.

The Marijuana Policy Project, the pro-pot group that pushed the measures in Colorado and Portland, said it plans to campaign for legalization in 13 more states, including ballot initiatives in Maine, Alaska, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Montana and Nevada, and bills in the Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont state legislatures.

"It is only a matter of time before voters and lawmakers in other states recognize the benefits and adopt similar policies," Mason Tvert, Marijuana Policy Project director of communications, said on Tuesday.

And those who do won't likely face interference from the feds.

In an August memo, U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole said that the federal government would not attempt to interfere with efforts, like the ones in Washington and Colorado, to implement marijuana legalization laws passed by state voters.

The statement, coupled with recent votes, seems to have emboldened the legalization movement.

"It's time to move beyond prohibition and adopt a more sensible approach," David Boyer, Maine political director for the Marijuana Policy Project, said.

"We are grateful voters approved funding that will allow for a strong regulatory environment, just like liquor is regulated," Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a statement. "We will do everything in our power to make sure kids don't smoke pot and that we don't have people driving who are high. This ballot measure gives Colorado the ability to regulate marijuana properly."

Miami Beach backs medical marijuana; is Florida next?

Miami Beach voters became the first in Florida to call for the decriminalization of marijuana for medical use in a Tuesday vote that gives a glimpse of statewide support for the issue.

The 64-36 percent approval jibed with state and national polls that show medical-marijuana support approaching 60 percent or more.

The non-binding straw poll — calling on the city to ask the state and federal governments to allow medical cannabis — was so popular that it garnered about 1,000 more votes than the leading candidate for mayor, Philip Levine.

The group People United for Medical Marijuana, which is backing a proposed constitutional amendment to make Florida the 20th pot-decriminalization state, hopes Tuesday’s Miami Beach vote reflects state sentiment.

“It speaks pretty positively to our chances next November,” said Benjamin Pollara, treasurer of the Orlando-based group.

“This was a very low turnout election in Miami Beach,” he said, “it’s a relatively old electorate, and yet it still got close to 65 percent of the vote.”

But opponents say the small 25 percent turnout election in the Democratic-leaning city undercuts the importance of the 6,683 favorable straw-poll votes. They also draw a distinction between the 24-word nonbinding referendum and the two-page statewide initiative.

“Florida’s initiative, like efforts in other states, is about the legalization of marijuana cultivation, marketing, sales, distribution, and use,” Calvina Fay, executive director of the Clearwater-based Drug Free America Foundation, said in a written statement.

“It is about creating a ‘Big Marijuana’ industry like the ‘Big Tobacco’ industry,” Fay wrote. “Once voters understand this, they are less likely to support such a dangerous concept.”

The Florida amendment’s language limits marijuana to medical purposes as determined by a licensed Florida physician, but Fay’s group says the restriction is a distinction without a difference because pot could be prescribed for the most-basic of ailments.

Also, medical marijuana has been a precursor to outright legalization in places like Maine.

Maine’s largest city, Portland, became the first East Coast city on Tuesday to legalize personal marijuana possession by adults. Three Michigan cities on the same day decriminalized pot possession, with Lansing removing all criminal and civil penalties in the same way as Portland.

Now, cities in 14 states have decriminalized it.

Also on Tuesday, Colorado voters approved a 25 percent tax on marijuana sales. That state had legalized personal marijuana use last year.

Nationwide, a recent Gallup poll found support for pure legalization has reached an all-time high, 58 percent.

“The movement to legalize marijuana mirrors the relatively recent success of the movement to legalize gay marriage, which voters have also approved now in 14 states,” according to a Gallup analysis.

Two polls taken by Florida’s medical-marijuana group indicated that voters here still oppose outright legalization of marijuana.

But the back-to-back polls showed voters backed medical marijuana use by 78 percent and 71 percent. A more-recent survey taken by Public Policy Polling indicated 62 percent of Florida voters would support it.

Pollster David Beattie, who conducted one of those surveys, said support is increasing for marijuana’s medical use or decriminalization for a variety of reasons, including seniors who became familiar with the drug in the 1960s and don’t see it as the devil weed portrayed in decades-old scare movies like Reefer Madness.

To make a proposed constitutional amendment a law in Florida, 60 percent of voters have to approve of it.

But before voters decide the matter, the Florida Supreme Court has to deem the ballot summary of the measure isn’t misleading. And then supporters have to gather 683,149 verified voter signatures by February.

People United says it has gathered about 200,000 so far, of which more than 110,000 have been verified.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has asked the state Supreme Court to throw the measure off the 2014 ballot, saying the summary is misleading. People United denies the charge.

Bondi’s fellow Republican, Gov. Rick Scott, also opposes the measure. So do the GOP leaders of the Legislature, Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford, who say they plan to join Bondi’s opposition in court.

The Legislature has refused to put medical marijuana initiatives on the ballot. Legislators have repeatedly refused to give the issue a hearing, even ignoring the 2010 request of the city of South Miami commissioners to consider it.

The two leading Democrats who want to challenge Scott next year, Charlie Crist and Nan Rich, say they support medical marijuana. Crist’s boss, trial lawyer John Morgan, is leading the People United initiative.

But Morgan has said the effort is nonpartisan and is about one thing: medicine for sick people.

In Miami Beach, the straw ballot question grew out of the making of the Square Grouper documentary by local production company Rakontur in 2010.

“With Miami Beach being a leader in progressive laws, we thought a decriminalization effort would be a good idea because it was happening around the country,” said Billy Corben, who founded Rakontur with Alfred Spellman.

They helped start a petition drive that was eventually taken over by the group Sensible Florida, which gathered about 8,000 voter signatures in an effort to stop Miami Beach police from jailing people with personal amounts of marijuana of 20 grams or less.

The City of Miami Beach balked at the initial proposal, the two sides negotiated and, eventually, Miami Beach put the nonbinding straw poll question limited to medical marijuana before voters.

For 35-year-old beach resident Michael McAllister, it was an easy vote.

“If you can prescribe dangerous opiates, why can’t you do it with something less dangerous like marijuana?” he asked. “It’s common sense.”

Medical Marijuana - How to Regulate the Trade - Tips for Florida