Florida Senator Who Previously Chaired State Republican Party Endorses Marijuana Legalization Ballot Initiative

A Florida GOP senator has endorsed a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana, breaking with the state Republican party that he previously chaired.

Sen. Joe Gruters (R), who currently serves as chair of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee, came out in favor of the cannabis measure, Amendment 3, on Wednesday.

As opponents, including Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and state law enforcement associations, step up their efforts to convince voters to reject the proposal, Gruters said supporting the initiative is a “common-sense decision that prioritizes individual freedom, health, safety and economic growth.”

“By legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, we can give Floridians access to safe products, generate significant revenue for critical public services and create new job opportunities for Floridians,” he said. “I urge you to join me in voting ‘Yes’ on Amendment 3 this November. Together, we can build a safer, smarter future for the Free State of Florida.”

The endorsement is all the more notable considering that the senator previously served as chairman of the Florida Republican Party, which 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.

Amendment 3 is about personal freedom; but it is also about creating a safer, more regulated recreational marijuana market and generating much-needed revenue for critical public services like our law enforcement. https://t.co/oK0T8lXtIS

— Joe Gruters (@JoeGruters) July 31, 2024

Morgan Hill, spokesperson for Smart & Safe Florida, the campaign behind Amendment 3, said the team is “honored to have Sen. Gruters’ support, yet another example of the expansive coalition behind legalizing recreational adult use marijuana.”

“Individual liberty is not a partisan issue, and we’re glad to have Sen. Gruters on board to help spread our message of personal freedom and a safer Florida for all,” she said.

Gruters wrote in an op-ed published in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Thursday that he shares DeSantis’s “belief that we should not allow people to smoke marijuana in public.”

“Just as I worked diligently in the Florida Legislature to ban smoking at our state’s public beaches, I am committed to ensuring our public spaces remain smoke-free,” he said. “We can implement clear regulations and enforcement measures to prevent public marijuana use in the same way that we limit alcohol and tobacco, thereby protecting the health and comfort of all Floridians.”

“When it comes to allowing marijuana in our state, the truth of the matter is that marijuana is already here in Florida. But recreational marijuana is here without proper regulation. The market operates in the shadows, leaving consumers vulnerable to untested and potentially dangerous products like fentanyl. Amendment 3 would change that by ensuring adult Floridians have access to marijuana that is rigorously tested and regulated. This means safer products for consumers and a significant reduction in the risks associated with the illegal market.”

According to the latest polling, the initiative does have enough support to pass, with majority support across every demographic surveyed. Overall, 64 percent of voters said they backed the proposal, surpassing the 60 percent threshold required to pass a constitutional amendment.

One opposition campaign, Vote No On 3, also recently commissioned a poll on the measure that similarly found 64 percent of voters in favor of the reform.

Meanwhile, Grunter’s endorsement of the legalization measure comes 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.

Earlier this 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.

Earlier this 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 new 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 last month 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 last month 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 last month 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 last month, 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 last month.

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:

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

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