Colombia Coca Crop Acreage Hits Record, AR Supreme Court Kills MedMJ Expansion Init, More... (10/21/24)

A new poll has the Florida pot legalization initiative winning, another new poll has the South Dakota pot legalization initiative losing, and more. 

Harvesting coca in Colombia (DEAMuseum.org)

New Poll Has Florida Marijuana Legalization Initiative Winning. A poll released Monday by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab has the Amendment 3 marijuana legalization initiative winning, with 66 percent of respondents ready to vote yes and only 32 percent ready to vote no. Under Florida law, the initiative needs 60 percent to pass because it amends the state constitution. 

The initiative would legalize the possession of up to three ounces of pot by people 21 and over, as well as up to five grams of concentrates. There is no provision for home cultivation. Existing medical marijuana operations could sell to adults for personal use. It would be up to the legislature to allow anyone other than existing medical marijuana dispensaries to get licensed for adult sales.

Earlier polls on the prospects for the initiative are split on the outcome. A poll from Florida Atlantic University has Amendment 3 at 56 percent -- a majority but not enough of one to pass. The silver lining in this poll is that 15 percent of voters remain undecided, and the amendment only needs to about one out of three of those undecided to reach the 60 percent threshold.

A poll from USA Today/Suffolk University has better news for the Amendment 3 campaign, showing 63 percent support, with only about 3.2 percent of voters undecided. That suggests that the initiative would have to lose nearly every single currently undecided voter to fall short of 60 percent.

New Poll Has South Dakota Marijuana Legalization Initiative Losing. A poll released over the weekend by the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota has the  Initiated Measure (IM) 29  marijuana legalization initiative losing, with only 44 percent of respondents in favor, 51 percent opposed and five percent undecided. That is up slightly from the 42 percent support registered in the same poll in May, but not enough to win.

Majorities of Democrats (75 percent) and independents (56 percent) support the initiative, but in the heavily Republican state, only 26 percent of GOPers said they would vote for it. 

The initiative would legalize the possession of up to two ounces of marijuana and the home cultivation of up to six plants but, in a bid to avoid the kind of constitutional complications that undid the 2020 initiative, does not address legal marijuana commerce. That would be up to the legislature.

It also contains protections for employers, allowing them to discriminate against legal marijuana users, and for property owners, allowing them to forbid marijuana use or possession on their premises. The bare-bones initiative contains no social equity provisions.

The limited polling available suggests the initiative campaign is in for an uphill fight, with a fall 2023 poll finding 45 percent in favor, 42 percent opposed, and 13 percent undecided. But with the state Republican Party this year loudly opposing the initiative, a June poll showed only 42 percent support, with 52 percent opposed. Organizers hope a turnout boost from the presidential election and an abortion rights initiative also on the state ballot will get them over the top, but that does not appear to be happening.

Medical Marijuana

Arkansas Supreme Court Throws Out Medical Marijuana Expansion Initiative. Although it will appear on the ballot, votes for and against the Issue 3 medical marijuana initiative will not be counted after the state Supreme Court on Monday ruled 4-3 that the initiative’s popular name and ballot title are insufficient. 

"The ballot title misleads voters because it omits language stating that the proposed amendment would repeal the General Assembly’s authority to amend Amendment 98 (i.e., omits material information). The proposed amendment alters or amends Amendment 98 in at least twenty different ways," the opinion reads.

Amendment 98 is the state's existing medical marijuana law. The initiative would have repealed the legislature's authority to make changes to that law. 

The high court also opined that a provision of the initiative that would have legalized up to an ounce of marijuana for all adults—not just registered patients—if the drug were legalized at the federal level made the initiative's popular name, which only mentions medical marijuana, misleading. 

The measure would have enlarged a 2016 medical marijuana initiative approved by the voters. It would have expanded the range of healthcare professionals who could recommend medical marijuana, expanded the definition of qualifying conditions, made medical marijuana ID cards good for three years, allowed reciprocity for out-of-state cardholders, and allowed patients to grow their own medicine -- up to 14 plants, seven of which could be mature.

Arkansans for Patient Access, who sponsored the initiative decried Monday's decision. 

"This is a setback for the growth and improvement of our existing program, but it will not be the last attempt to ease the barriers Arkansas’s medical patients encounter," the group said in a statement. "We will continue our fight to eliminate hurdles to access and lower costs. Patients across Arkansas have made it clear they want to build on the existing foundation; unfortunately, the anti-marijuana politicians have ignored their call. The people rule, our state motto, does not ring true today."

International

Colombia Coca Crop Acreage Largest Yet, UNODC Says. A report last Friday from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) finds that the amount of land dedicated to coca leaf production—the raw material for cocaine—increased 10 percent last year, becoming the largest amount of land under cultivation for the crop in at least two decades. UNODC said some 630,000 acres of crop land were devoted to coca last year, up from 575,000 the year before. 

That 10 percent increase, however, produced a more than 50 percent increase in potential cocaine production to 2,644 metric tons, up from 1,738 metric tons in 2022. 

"The 10 percent increase in cultivation is in the country's most productive areas and this has a very important impact on potential production" of cocaine, UNODC's regional representative, Candice Welsch, told a press conference. The coca plantations were mostly young, between two and four years old, making them more productive than earlier plots, she added. 

Cocaine production in Colombia, strategically located between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is controlled by armed groups and many consider it to be fueling a nearly six-decade-long internal conflict that has killed over 450,000 people. Among those armed groups are dissident leftist guerillas, rightist paramilitaries, and apolitical drug trafficking organizations.