Published: Friday, April 10, 2015 at 4:18 p.m. Last Modified: Friday, April 10, 2015 at 4:18 p.m.
Medical marijuana advocates will have a presence at today's Epilepsy Foundation of Florida's annual Walk the Talk fundraising event in Gainesville.
Registration begins at 8 a.m. and the walk starts at 9 a.m. at the Sidney Lanier Center, 312 NW 16th Ave.
Representatives of People United for Medical Marijuana, the political action committee that got medical marijuana on the ballot in 2014 as a constitutional amendment, will be on hand collecting voter signatures as part of the petition drive to get back on the ballot in 2016.
Mandy Hancock Anderson, the community development manager at the Epilepsy Foundation's Gainesville office, said the organization is not campaigning in support of the political issue in order to avoid potentially jeopardizing its 501c3 tax exempt status.
"We just support anything that increases treatment options for our clients," Anderson said.
The national office of the Epilepsy Foundation came out in support of medical marijuana in early 2014.
That February, the president and CEO of the Foundation and the chair of the board of directors put out a statement saying the Foundation "supports the rights of patients and families living with seizures and epilepsy to access physician-directed care, including medical marijuana."
The organization also called on the federal government to end DEA restrictions that block or limit clinical trials on the use of medical marijuana to treat epilepsy.
In a letter to the editor that some Florida newspapers published this January, Karen Basha Egozi, the president of the Epilepsy Foundation of Florida, supported the bill that State Sen. Jeff Brandes, R- St. Petersburg, filed this session to introduce an expanded medical marijuana system for specific medical conditions, including epilepsy. In the letter, she also urged lawmakers to work through the obstacles that have delayed the implementation of the non-euphoric, low-THC medical marijuana system they approved last year to treat epilepsy and a handful of other conditions.
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Epilepsy Foundation event will include medical marijuana advocates