Pam Bondi formally asks Supreme Court to review medical pot amendment

Attorney General Pam Bondi made it official on Friday, formally asking the Florida Supreme Court to review a proposed constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana.

Bondi sent a letter to the court, petitioning the justices to check the amendment’s “validity.” It did not include a statement of legal opposition, as her previous letter on last year’s medical marijuana initiative did.

The Republican attorney general opposed the measure, saying its language was unclear and misleading and would have made Florida “one of the most lenient medical-marijuana states.” It failed at the ballot boxes.

The new amendment had attained the amount of signatures needed for review in late August. The Supreme Court’s OK is one more step toward getting on the 2016 ballot.

Late Friday, the state Division of Elections website showed the amendment had 239,486 valid signatures. Medical marijuana got more than a million signatures overall last year, but an initiative actually needs 683,149 signatures.

At least one-tenth that number is needed to qualify for a review by the court, which determines the legality of the language and ballot summary before it can go on the ballot.

In August, Ben Pollara, head of Orlando-based People United for Medical Marijuana, called court review “the first major milestone to bringing medical marijuana back before the voters of Florida.”

“In the next election, Floridians will succeed where their elected leaders have failed them, and pass a comprehensive, compassionate medical marijuana law to serve the hundreds of thousands of sick and suffering people who are so desperate for relief in our state,” he said.

Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson spent considerable money to oppose the amendment last year – about $5.5 million – and it fell 3 points short of the 60 percent needed for it to be added to the state constitution.

That was despite the backing of Orlando trial attorney John Morgan, who personally gave more than $4 million to the petition drive.

Pollara said the amendment’s new language clarifies issues related to parental consent and the kinds of conditions that would qualify use of marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana under state law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but selling marijuana is still a federal crime.