The legalization of marijuana for recreational use has already begun in many states, but Florida is not one of them. You may wonder if legalization is coming soon, but you should not get your hopes up.
According to WJHG, there are many reasons that recreational marijuana is not likely to become legal in Florida in near future.
Past attempts failed
There have already been efforts to make marijuana legal in the state but they both failed when they got to the state Supreme Court. The laws did not pass legal muster, so they went back to the legislature.
Some attention
There is some attention to recreating bills that will pass a legal check, but there is not a big enough movement occurring to make much of a difference right now. The focus appears to be more on lightening up medical marijuana laws.
The goal
The main reasoning behind legalization is to reduce the associated crimes. Once you legalize it, it wipes out a range of criminal charges. This frees up law enforcement to work on more serious cases. It also keeps relatively non-serious offenders out of the legal system, freeing it up to tackle the other cases.
Typically, when a state legalizes marijuana for recreational use, it also will erase old convictions. This is incredibly helpful to people because a criminal record can cause issues with finding housing, landing employment or getting certain benefits.
Unfortunately, it does not appear Florida lawmakers feel a marijuana bill requires their attention right now, so it will likely be a while before recreational legalization could happen.