Amendment 2 officially becomes Florida law on Tuesday, but it could be more than a year before people can get their hands on medical marijuana.

  • Lawyer John Morgan said that Amendment 2 won by 'a landslide'
  • He believes there will be a decrease in drug use
  • It could be until 2018 before medical marijuana is dispensed
  • RELATED: Medical marijuana in Florida

On the eve of Amendment 2 becoming law, John Morgan — who pushed for years for the measure’s passage — talked candidly to News 13 about why he believes the new law will decrease drug use, about the obstacles it faces and why he won’t be pushing for medical marijuana across the country.

Morgan said he is happy his push to legalize medical marijuana in Florida won a huge victory.

“It was 71 percent, and in politics, that’s a landslide,” Morgan said.

But he knows medical marijuana will not be dispensed when law takes effect on Tuesday.

“There’s still a lot of bureaucracy between now and whenever,” Morgan said.

First, state lawmakers are expected to discuss and come up with regulations on the dispensing of medical pot. State health officials are not expected to begin implementing those regulations until July.

Depending on those regulations, it could be 2018 before the first doses of medical marijuana are dispensed. And several counties and cities across Central Florida have passed moratoriums to restrict when and where it can be sold.

Yet, Morgan believes it will happen sooner than later.

“It’s going to happen a lot sooner than Charlotte’s Web did, and here’s why: There are billions of dollars at stake here in profit and taxes,” said Morgan as he mentioned Charlotte's Web Medical Hemp Act of 2014.

Morgan laughs off claims that medical marijuana will create problems. He says it won’t increase drug use.

“It’s ridiculous,” Morgan said. “More drug use, you mean more opioid drugs, you mean more Percocet, Darvocet, Zanex, Oxycontin, Fentanol? No, it’s going to reduce drug use.”

As for the concerns about medical marijuana finding its way to children through candy forms, Morgan said state lawmakers can protect people through regulations. He added that marijuana is far less lethal than other drugs.

“Not one person has ever died from an overdose of marijuana, legal marijuana, illegal marijuana, medical marijuana, recreational marijuana,” Morgan said.

Although, some experts have stated that there are negative side effects of marijuana, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

But Morgan says he will not try to push to legalize medical marijuana in states across the country that have not legalized it.

“This fight was hard enough in Florida, I can’t even imagine the pushback I would get trying to pass this federally,” Morgan said.

Morgan said he is not interested in pushing for the legalization of medical marijuana at the federal level. He believes the federal government will respect the decision of voters in states like Florida, who overwhelmingly passed the new law.