Florida police recently arrested a felon for allegedly placing fake names on a petition to legalize marijuana in 2022.
According to local station WUFT in Florida, officials discovered that a number of signatures included in a 2022 petition to legalize weed in the state were forgeries, and at least one signature belonged to a dead person.
Police were able to trace the fraudulent petitions back to Georgia resident Colton Edward Brady, who has had prior convictions for marijuana possession, theft and burglary. He was released from state prison in 2020 and worked as a signature collector for a cannabis legalization campaign before returning to prison in 2023 for violating parole.
While in prison, Brady told investigators that he used publicly available information to look up names and details of voters before forging their signatures on the petition. He allegedly said he did it because he was jealous of other petition-gatherers for having collected more signatures.
This conviction is not related to the proposed legalization measure that Florida voters will decide in November.
New Jersey governor signs bill limiting hemp sales
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill this month that will prohibit retailers from selling hemp-based THC products without a cannabis license.
The new law prohibits the sale or distribution of products containing THC to anyone under 21 while temporarily banning the sale of intoxicating hemp products by anyone who isn’t licensed to sell marijuana. However, the law will also allow alcohol wholesalers and distributors to sell the products.
In a statement, Murphy said he would have preferred if the bill had not included alcoholic beverage dealers to sell intoxicating hemp. He said the commission does not have the funds to start a new regulatory program allowing outside industries to sell cannabis products. He also said the bill does not explicitly require alcoholic distributors to comply with the state’s cannabis regulations.
Murphy said he decided to sign the bill because “the status quo is untenable.”
Weed support strong in battleground states
As the presidential election looms, two new polls found that voters in Arizona and Nevada — two key battleground states that have also legalized adult-use cannabis — support major marijuana law reform.
The two surveys were conducted by The Tarrance Group — a Republican research and polling firm — and commissioned by the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. The surveys asked 500 likely voters in Arizona and Nevada if they support the federal legalization of medical cannabis, the federal legalization of recreational marijuana, the rescheduling of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act or allowing state-licensed weed operators to legally access bank services.
In Arizona, 86% of respondents support medical cannabis legalization at the federal level, 69% support recreational legalization, 78% support cannabis banking reform and 81% support rescheduling or descheduling weed.
In Nevada, 85% of respondents support legalizing medical cannabis, 71% support recreational, 80% support marijuana banking reform and 78% support rescheduling or descheduling marijuana.