If you want to see a medical marijuana referendum on the 2012 ballot, you'll have to say a prayer that House Joint Resolution 353 passes through the Legislature -- it's currently in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee -- or you're going to have to be one of 646,889 more Floridians to sign the People United for Medical Marijuana petition. If you want to see a medical marijuana referendum on the 2012 ballot, you'll have to say a prayer that House Joint Resolution 353 passes through the Legislature -- it's currently in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee -- or you're going to have to be one of 646,889 more Floridians to sign the People United for Medical Marijuana petition.

PUFMM has scored 29,922 of the 676,811 valid signatures needed by February 1 to land on the ballot, which means they're about 4.4 percent of the way there.

Since PUFMM's last tally on October 29, 7,646 of the 29,922 signatures (25.5 percent) come from Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties.

The amendment to the Florida Constitution is fairly different from the one proposed in the House by Rep. Jeff Clemens of Lake Worth, as the language in the PUFMM petition seemingly offers less regulation than the one in the Legislature.

Instead of the handful of limits that would be imposed against potential patients -- as with HJR 353 -- the citizen petition provides a person would be eligible if they fit a certain list of medical conditions or "other diseases and conditions when recommended by a physician." We all know that anxiety you get when you're about to run out of weed.

PUFMM's petition also calls for the ability of the Legislature to enact a "general law" for patients to undergo some sort of registration, as well as regulations for the distribution and sale of medical marijuana. (Remember, Gov. Rick Scott doesn't like all those burdensome regulations.)