United for Care to Launch Statewide Paid Petition Drive

United for Care, the organization that brought medical marijuana to the ballot in 2014, is launching an aggressive, statewide petition drive to put medical marijuana back on the ballot in 2016.

The paid petitioning effort began this week and will be in full effect by July 1. This new, paid effort joins a volunteer based effort that has already collected tens of thousands of petitions since mid-January of this year.  Ultimately, 683,149 valid petitions need to be turned in by Supervisors of Elections to the Florida Department of State by February 1, 2016 in order to obtain ballot placement for the 2016 vote.  10% of that figure must be verified to trigger Supreme Court review.

"We collected over a million petitions in 2014 and nearly 3.4 million people voted “yes” for medical marijuana.  There is no question in my mind that we will get medical marijuana back on the ballot for 2016," said Ben Pollara, Campaign Manager for United for Care.

 The petition has only minor updates to its language - clarifying issues related to parental consent and the kinds of conditions that would qualify a potential patient, with a doctor's recommendation.

"The legislature had an opportunity to keep this off the ballot by passing a law. They turned their backs on the patients of Florida - but we can't and we won't.  We're going to win this war and help suffering Floridians in 2016," said John Morgan, Chairman of United for Care.

Morgan reiterated his commitment to seeing medical marijuana placed back before voters, “I will do whatever it takes to get this done. This is about compassion for hundreds of thousands of very sick people in Florida.”

Registered Florida voters who wish to sign the petition now, can fill it out, print it, and mail it in. Those who signed the petition in 2013 and 2014 must sign the new petition again, if they wish to see medical marijuana placed on the 2016 ballot. The petition can be found here: www.unitedforcare.org/petition

For press inquiries please contact Bianca Garza at press@unitedforcare.org