90.7 WMFE

United for Care has collected 900,000 signatures to put medical marijuana in front of voters in 2016, according to figures released Tuesday.

“It appears we have more signatures than is required,” said Matt Morgan with the Morgan law firm, which has been backing the campaign.

United for Care has a goal of collecting a million signatures, and the group says it will likely hit that mark by the end of the year. Technically, 683,000 is the mark, but organizer collect more than that because the signatures have to be from verified registered voters.

Morgan said it’s been easier getting signatures this time.

“Before we had to identify who our supporters were,” Morgan said. “Now we have an idea who our supporters are because they helped us in the last election cycle.”

Medical marijuana just barely missed getting the 60 percent of the votes needed to pass in 2014 in Florida. Opponents say the amendment is too broad, and will make marijuana more accessible to kids. Florida has a non-euphoric medical marijuana law on the books, but implementation has been jammed up from lawsuits – including 13 more filed this week.

WMFE is a partner with Health News Florida, a statewide collaborative reporting on health care.

Health reporting on WMFE is supported in part by AdventHealth.