Local organizations and community members rallied today at Lake Eola, urging Rick Scott to stop using his executive order to restrict cannabis use for medical marijuana patients.

"Rick Scott is pretty personally standing in the way of the will of the people," said rally organizer Brett Pufferbarger, the PR director for Buds for Vets, a support group for veterans seeking health help from cannabis. "It doesn't matter what party we're from, what organization we're from, where we're from – Rick Scott's got to go. He hates us."

Local politicians Anna Eskamani and Carlos Guillermo Smith were also in attendance.
One of the issues that Orlando community members are fuming about is Scott's ongoing fight to not allow medical marijuana to be smoked.



In June, a Florida judge ruled that medical marijuana should be smokable for the second time after Rick Scott put a stay on the initial ruling. Now, Scott has once again appealed the decision, delaying the process and restricting patients from access to smokable marijuana.

"I think Orlando has been through a lot recently, so I think that if that's what it takes to help people heal – and I know there's a lot of people in this community that need healing – then that's a big deal here," said Puffenbarger.

Rico Camy, an employee at TreeLeaf Healing Center, a clinic focused on holistic medicine, believes that not only should medical marijuana be legal to smoke, but all marijuana should be legalized recreationally.

"Look at how many people are arrested for possession – that's a huge win if we legalize it as far as recreationally. We no longer have to waste money jailing people for it," said Camy. "My patients that come to see us at our clinic are about 55 and sometimes 65 and older for the most part, so that would be a huge win for our senior population as well."

However, for the time being, local organizations and medical marijuana patients are just focused on getting Rick Scott out of their hair and leaving them and their cannabis alone.

Stay on top of Orlando news and views. Sign up for our weekly Headlines newsletter.