Politics
DeSantis Doubles Down On Opposition To Florida Marijuana Legalization As State And National Polls Show Bipartisan Support
As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) doubles down on his opposition campaign against a marijuana legalization initiative that will appear on the November ballot, a prominent conservative pollster is reminding his party that the issue enjoys sizable bipartisan support. And a fresh poll out of Florida shows the legalization measure passing by a comfortable margin.
DeSantis caught flak from cannabis advocates and industry stakeholders on Thursday after calling the proposed marijuana reform that Floridians will get a chance to decide on “bad policy and even worse constitutional law.” He also accused the major cannabis company Trulieve of financially supporting the legalization campaign so that it “gets a constitutionally-protected monopoly on the market,” arguing that Amendment 3 was “written by” the company’s CEO Kim Rivers.
This comes a week after top DeSantis staffer and Rivers feuded over the state legalization initiative, drawing attention to the anti-cannabis governor’s position on home cultivation, which would not be legalized under the reform measure.
But overall polling—both nationally and at the state-level—raise questions about the political thinking behind the governor’s ongoing vocal opposition to cannabis reform. While not all surveys have shown the measure reaching the steep 60 percent threshold needed to enact a constitutional amendment at the ballot under Florida law, it has consistently proved popular among a majority of Floridians.
Amendment 3: written by the CEO of a weed company that has poured $70 million (and counting) into the effort so that the company gets a constitutionally-protected monopoly on the market.
This is bad policy and even worse constitutional law. https://t.co/9DenQ4ltkt
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 28, 2024
And one of the latest surveys from the James Madison Institute (JMI) that was released this week shows 64 percent of likely voters in Florida are in favor of the legalization proposal, compared to 27 percent who are opposed and 9 percent who are undecided.
There is bipartisan support for the Florida cannabis measure in the poll, with 74 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents and 54 percent of Republicans on board.
While DeSantis reiterated his opposition on Thursday in a post on X, a broader conversation about the politics of marijuana legalization played out in another thread from pollster Frank Luntz, who shared toplines from a 2023 Gallup survey finding that a record seven in 10 Americans back the reform nationally.
That includes 87 percent of Democrats, 70 percent on independents and 55 percent of Republicans.
Overall support for marijuana legalization: 70%
By age:
• 18-34: 79%
• 35-54: 71%
• 55+: 64%By party:
• Democrats: 87%
• Independents: 70%
• Republicans: 55%👉🏻 https://t.co/WD2DftkVyx https://t.co/Qrw6bFYnjh
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) August 29, 2024
Multiple commenters argued that the bipartisan support represents another reason that former President Donald Trump should come out in support of reform ahead of the November election.
Vice President Kamala Harris has already established a pro-legalization position, though she’s yet to weigh in on the policy since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Trump, meanwhile, said this month that he’s increasingly inclined to back decriminalization as more states move to legalize. And he said he’d be making a statement on Florida’s Amendment 3 “fairly soon.”
Meanwhile, a Democratic congresswoman who recently said she was on the fence about whether she’d vote for the legalization ballot initiative this November has officially given the measure her endorsement.
There’s been a mixed bag of feedback on Amendment 3 from members of Florida’s congressional delegation.
One pro-legalization GOP congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), recently said he intends to vote against it, strictly because he feels the reform should be enacted statutorily, rather than as a constitutional amendment that would prove more challenging to amend.
On the other hand, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, predicted earlier this year that the measure will pass.
A Florida poll released this week found majority support for the legalization initiative. But the results show it falling just short of the steep 60 percent requirement for passage in the state.
Another a pair of polls published this month similarly found majority support for the Florida legalization initiative—but just one of them found there’s enough support to meet the 60 percent threshold for passage under state law.
Separately, the head of Florida’s correctional department claimed in an op-ed this month that passing the marijuana legalization initiative would actually “increase” the state’s prison population—a paradoxical assertion that’s being promoted by top staff of DeSantis.
Advocates and stakeholders are also awaiting a statement about the legalization measure from former President Donald Trump, a Florida resident who recently indicated he disagrees with criminalizing people over cannabis as more states enact legalization and who said he’d be weighing in on Amendment 3 “fairly soon.”
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally and GOP political operative, told Marijuana Moment this month that if the Republican nominee does ultimately endorse the initiative, that would “guarantee victory.”
Meanwhile, a hedge fund billionaire announced earlier this month that he’s spending $20 million “in support of candidates and to oppose Amendment 3.” Of that, a $12 million donation will go directly to the Vote No on 3 campaign.
Overall, there’s been a mixed bag of supports and opponents of the legalization measure. For example, a Florida GOP senator recently endorsed the ballot initiative, breaking with the state Republican party that he previously chaired.
The Florida Republican Party officially came out against the marijuana initiative in May, clearing the way for the governor to raise money to fund an opposition campaign against the measure.
The GOP state senator’s endorsement of the legalization measure came one day after the Florida Police Chiefs Association (FPCA) and the Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA) both came out against Amendment 3. They argued that the reform would cause increases in youth use, impaired driving, illicit operations and tax costs for residents, citing dubious evidence.
Smart & Safer Florida, meanwhile, has earned endorsements from a variety of organizations, officials and lawmakers, including Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan (D), Gadsden Sheriff Morris Young, Service Employees International Union (SEUI) and state Sens. Joe Gruters (R) and Shevrin Jones (D).
Last month, the governor also lashed out against Amendment 3 at the Republican National Convention, making hyperbolic claims about what the reform would allow—claims backers say are “absolutely untrue.”
DeSantis called the proposed constitutional amendment “limitless,” arguing that it would establish a right to marijuana that would be more fundamental than First Amendment or Second Amendment protections for free speech and guns, respectively.
Speaking at a recent police event, DeSantis falsely claimed that most Colorado voters “regret” approving marijuana legalization. In fact, recent polling shows that the reform continues to enjoy strong support there.
Last month, news broke that DeSantis’s so-called “Florida Freedom Fund” received a $100,000 donation from the cannabis company group POB Ventures in order to help defeat the marijuana and abortion proposals. That amount was nearly ten times what the campaign had raised in total at the beginning of July.
In an exclusive interview with Marijuana Moment, the CEO of POB Ventures, Patrick O’Brien, said he’s not against adult-use cannabis legalization in principle—but is instead troubled by the specific language of the ballot initiative because it provides an option, rather than a mandate, for regulators to approve additional licenses.
Suspicions about the motivations behind the contribution to DeSantis’s PAC aren’t likely to dissolve, especially amid reporting from CBS News Miami that unnamed hemp businesses have joined forces to back DeSantis in his fight against the legalization measure, with a pledge to contribute $5 million collectively to the state Republican Party after the governor vetoed the bill that ostensibly would have wiped out the market by banning most consumable cannabinoid products.
It’s been previously reported that the governor is hoping to garner support for his efforts to defeat the marijuana legalization initiative from the state’s hemp industry. DeSantis seemed to concede in June that his veto of a bill to ban most consumable hemp-derived cannabinoids was at least partly because he hoped the market would aid in his anti-legalization campaign.
The DeSantis campaign committee, even with the recent contributions, is still miles behind the legalization campaign, Smart & Safe Florida, in terms of fundraising. The legalization effort has raised over $60 million since launching in late 2022.
DeSantis has been railing against the marijuana measure for months—most recently arguing that it would protect the right to use cannabis more strongly than the First Amendment protects free speech or the Second Amendment protects gun rights—and again claiming that the reform has been a “failed experiment” in states such as Colorado.
The governor said that the proposal would allow people to “do marijuana wherever you want—just smoke it, take it, and it would turn Florida into San Francisco or Chicago or some of these places.”
He also reprised one of his chief complaints about the potential impact of legalization: smelling cannabis.
“We’ve got to keep our streets clean. We cannot have every town smelling like marijuana. We cannot have every hotel smelling—theme parks,” he said, adding that voters don’t really understand the specifics of the legalization proposal and that ballot initiatives are generally “so bogus.”
DeSantis acknowledged that the state Supreme Court has a role in reviewing ballot language for constitutionality, and that a majority of justices determined that the marijuana measure met the legal standard. But while he previously correctly predicted the court would approve the initiative following a challenge from state Attorney General Ashley Moody (R), he now says the two dissenting justices were “correct” in trying to block voters from deciding on the measure.
DeSantis also claimed in June that that if voters approve the marijuana legalization initiative, people “will be able to bring 20 joints to an elementary school”—and he again complained about the prevalent odor of cannabis that he says would result from the reform.
Legalization has “not worked in any single place,” the governor said, and he challenged a recent ad from the campaign that promoted regulating cannabis as an alternative to the status quo of people using untested cannabis from illicit sellers.
Meanwhile, according to a Fox News poll released in June, two in three Florida voters support the cannabis initiative—with the issue proving more popular than the governor himself. The survey showed majority support for legalization across the political spectrum, too.
The governor has consistently argued that the state shouldn’t go beyond the existing medical cannabis program and that broader reform would negatively impact the quality of life for Floridians. The Florida Republican Party also formally came out against Amendment 3 in May.
Smart & Safe Florida separately announced in March that it was working to form a coalition of veterans to build voter support for the reform, and the campaign has since formally launched that initiative.
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Here’s what the Smart & Safe Florida marijuana legalization initiative would accomplish:
- Adults 21 and older could purchase and possess up to three ounces of cannabis for personal use. The cap for marijuana concentrates would be five grams.
- Medical cannabis dispensaries could “acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute marijuana products and marijuana accessories to adults for personal use.”
- The legislature would be authorized—but not required—to approve additional entities that are not currently licensed cannabis dispensaries.
- The initiative specifies that nothing in the proposal prevents the legislature from “enacting laws that are consistent with this amendment.”
- The amendment further clarifies that nothing about the proposal “changes federal law,” which seems to be an effort to avoid past legal challenges about misleading ballot language.
- There are no provisions for home cultivation, expungement of prior records or social equity.
- The measure would take effect six months following approval by voters.
Here’s the full text of the ballot title and summary:
“Allows adults 21 years or older to possess, purchase, or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for non-medical personal consumption by smoking, ingestion, or otherwise; allows Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers, and other state licensed entities, to acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute such products and accessories. Applies to Florida law; does not change, or immunize violations of, federal law. Establishes possession limits for personal use. Allows consistent legislation. Defines terms. Provides effective date.”
Economic analysts from the Florida legislature and DeSantis’s office, estimate that the marijuana legalization initiative would generate between $195.6 million and $431.3 million in new sales tax revenue annually if voters enact it. Those figures could increase considerably if lawmakers opted to impose an additional excise tax on cannabis transactions that’s similar to the ones in place in other legalized states.