2014 Florida Amendment 2
Florida Amendment 2, Use of Marijuana for Certain Medical Conditions, is an initiative that appeared on the November 4, 2014, ballot in the state of Florida as a citizen initiated state constitutional amendment. It was officially certified by the state's secretary of state to appear on the 2014 November ballot and numbered Amendment 2, not to be confused with the 2008 ban on same-sex marriage of the same name. If it had been enacted, the measure would have allowed for the cultivation, purchase, possession and use of medical cannabis to treat certain medical conditions when recommended by a licensed physician. The amendment was introduced by People United for Medical Marijuana on March 26, 2009. As of 2014, twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have already passed legislation allowing doctors to recommend the medicinal use of marijuana thereby legalizing a patients possession and use. After the amendment failed, in 2016 a similar amendment passed. 2014 gubernatorial politics The ballot measure was expected to have a significant impact on the 2014 governor's race, as the state's governor will be elected the same day the measure is voted on and both leading candidates have directly opposing views on the issue. Gubernatorial candidate, former governor, and Morgan & Morgan employee Charlie Crist(D) supported by donating a large sum of his own money to the effort, while the incumbent governor Rick Scott (R) is opposed to it. Attorney General Pam Bondi lead an effort to keep the measure off the ballot, ultimately failing when the state's Supreme Court ruled in favor of the proposed ballot measure. Bondi, backed by Rick Scott, filed suit to prevent the proposed constitutional amendment from appearing on the ballot. This is the third citizen backed initiative to amend the Florida Constitution to allow for the medical use of cannabis however, several "hail-mary passes" which consisted of filing legal challenges with seconds remaining on the clock have successfully kept this matter off the ballot for years. Court documents alleged each year that the proposed amendment failed to meet the rules of statutory construction regarding vagueness and violated the single subject matter rule. A citizens for compassion petition for a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution on the matter of decriminalizing the medicinal use of cannabis was drafted with a simplified statement using elementary language and petitioners began gathering the requisite minimum number of voter signatures well in advance of the deadline in order to preemptively place the proposed ballot language before the Court anticipating the inevitable legal challenge. Under Florida's Constitution Florida's Supreme Court has ultimate authority and jurisdiction over proposed state constitutional amendment approval. Florida's top court ruled, in a split decision, that the language of the proposed amendment was not unconstitutionally vague nor confusing and the proposed amendment specifically addressed only one subject matter as required under the Florida Constitution and will be placed before the voters. The Court used not so subtle cues by citing the rules of review from an advisory opinion titled "Advisory Op. to