Cannabis advocates face high hurdles next week to get voters to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota.
All three states lean conservative, and — despite former President Donald Trump’s recent statements supporting legal weed — many voters and Republican leaders firmly oppose letting adults possess and use small amounts of marijuana beyond medicinal purposes.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has launched a political action committee to oppose legalization and is campaigning against it. The marijuana legalization fight there is the most expensive ballot measure contest in the country this year.
“The whole purpose of this amendment is to create and protect a certain business model at the expense of what is good policy for the people of Florida,” he said Thursday during a press conference with law enforcement and business leaders.
Arguments for and against legalizing recreational marijuana have been roughly the same since Colorado voters first approved adult use in 2012.
Supporters say legal weed will boost tax collections, reduce arrests for minor drug crimes, and connect users with a safe and regulated product. Opponents say legalization will increase crime and harm public health.
But while the debate hasn’t changed much, the map has shrunk. Twenty-four states and Washington, D.C., now let adults possess and use small amounts of marijuana. An additional 15 states let people possess and use marijuana for medical reasons.
“Advocates and industry players are now looking to states where it’s more of an uphill climb,” said Douglas Berman, executive director of the Drug Enforcement Policy Center at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.
Cannabis advocates have found it easier to convince red state voters to allow medical programs than to legalize recreational marijuana.
Florida voters approved a medical marijuana program in 2014. North Dakota followed in 2016 and South Dakota in 2020. Polls suggest that a medical marijuana measure on the Nebraska ballot this year will pass.
But North Dakotans have rejected two previous adult use legalization measures. South Dakota voters approved a 2020 amendment that was later ruled unconstitutional, then rejected a 2022 initiative.
In Florida, proposed constitutional amendments must win 60% of the vote to pass — a high bar that few recreational marijuana legalization measures in other states have met.
Complicating the process for legalization advocates, DeSantis and Republican legislative leaders enacted laws in recent years that pile on bureaucratic requirements for ballot measure campaigns, such as increasing the number of signatures needed to qualify for legal review — the first step to getting on the ballot — and decreasing the length of time that signatures are valid.
Florida law allows citizens to propose constitutional amendments but not state statutes.
It’s always been hard to run a ballot measure campaign in Florida, said Michael Minardi, a Tampa-based cannabis lawyer who has worked for years to get an adult use measure before voters. And over time, “the legislature has continued to make the process more and more difficult.”
Cannabis advocates kept this year’s measure “short and sweet,” Minardi said, to satisfy state requirements that proposed amendments stick to a single subject and do not have misleading titles.
The proposed amendment simply asks voters to allow licensed medical marijuana businesses to sell adults up to 3 ounces of marijuana, which buyers would be able to legally possess and ingest for non-medical purposes.
Recreational marijuana legalization campaigns this year have been mostly bankrolled by cannabis companies. That’s a shift from the early years of legalization, when national nonprofits focused on ending drug decriminalization were major players.
Astronomical sums have poured into the Florida contest, reflecting both the high cost of getting a measure on the ballot there and cannabis business leaders’ determination to force open the door to a lucrative market.
The legalization campaign has raised $111.7 million so far, 92% from Florida-based cannabis corporation Trulieve, according to Ballotpedia. Opposing campaigns have raised $21.7 million, 65% from Republican mega-donors.
“Floridians are ready to experience the freedom to use cannabis for personal consumption; a freedom which is currently enjoyed by more than half of America’s adults,” Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers said in a statement last year, after the legalization campaign gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Trulieve did not respond to a request for comment.
Cannabis companies have a huge incentive to push for legal weed in Florida. An adult use market there could become the largest in the country, said Jesse Redmond, managing director of equity research firm Water Tower Research.
Recreational marijuana sales in Florida could hit $6 billion by 2026, Redmond’s team estimates, thanks to the state’s large population and tourist-heavy economy.
The amendment may have enough support to pass. Two-thirds of almost 1,000 likely voters polled Oct. 7-18 by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab planned to vote for the measure.
If approved, DeSantis and Republican legislative leaders will have to decide not only whether to tax and regulate recreational marijuana separately from medical marijuana but whether to overhaul the state’s medical program. Under current law, Florida’s medical marijuana program will be repealed six months after voters approve full legalization.
Cannabis advocates are braced for state leaders to try to undermine a recreational market.
“We are 100% worried about what the legislature is going to do,” Minardi said. “With medical [marijuana] they have, year after year, done more things to try to limit the program than they have to expand it.”