2016 WAVE Awards Spotlight: John Morgan

john morgan

There is no escaping John Morgan, but there is John Morgan escaping. The billboard and television advertising caricature of Morgan is much like the actual character of the man: He is for the people, he is a liberal, he does play with the big dogs. When we caught up with him to talk about his WAVE, though, he was in Maui having the time of his life.

“I don’t spend that much time in court these days,” he’ll admit. But his third son just passed the Bar Exam, so he has plenty of backup. These days, Morgan is pushing for a personal cause – specifically medical marijuana – and making quite a bit of noise in Florida’s relatively conservative voting base. In 2014, Morgan and his associated advocacy group United for Care barely missed passage of Amendment 2, a measure that would have made cannabis available by prescription for those suffering with debilitating diseases. He received substantial criticism from naysayers when the measure first crossed the transom, not the least of which came from Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“I effectively lost by a point,” he says, speaking of that contentious midterm election. “Last time, she opposed me. This time, they’ve all said ‘don’t bother.’”

Morgan’s advocacy on this issue stretches back to family issues with his brother and with his father; he’s been very open on the subject, and his wallet has dropped millions into it. But there was too much vagueness in the wording last time, critics complained, and so it is that we are faced with Amendment 2 (mach two) in a presidential year. You don’t get the sense that Morgan is worried about his chances.

He was a few months ago, though; and he’s more confident than when he spoke with Watermark last.

“I think I have to do a better job educating seniors about why this is really for them and their loved ones,” he said in January. “The problem with seniors is they’re so scared of drugs. They don’t know the difference between marijuana and heroin.”

It’s a tough argument, one that Morgan is willing to admit went afoul in the midterms. The drawing board was brought out and Morgan returned to it.

“This time, I tweaked my language,” he says. “I think we’re starting to see the tipping point.” (Amendment 2 returns to the ballot in November).

But the weed isn’t the only concern bothering Morgan’s doorjam. He’s been a friend to the LGBT community for as long as he can remember.

“We represent a lot of the gay community,” he says. “The thing that I’m proudest of is that when you come to my law firm, it is truly a diverse group. I’m most proud not of the legal work we’ve done, but of our openmindedness, our tolerance.”

He credits that tolerance to his school days as a young boy. As a child in third grade, he says, a nun told him not to judge.

“She said, ‘God doesn’t make mistakes,’” he recalls. “That has helped me as I’ve gone further in life. What I’ve seen in the last two or three years is what I call a tipping point” on the issue of LGBT rights.

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