Politics
Legal Marijuana Access Faces An Existential Threat In 2026, And We Must Fight Back (Op-Ed)
“These initiatives represent the first-ever large-scale coordinated attack on adult-use markets… This is not a drill. It is the moment to come together to defeat the prohibitionists.”
By Adam Smith, Marijuana Policy Project
2025 felt like a year of waiting in cannabis, but 2026 may be something else entirely.
Get ready for a major pushback against adult-use markets.
While much of the cannabis world spent month after month in 2025 watching (or lobbying) Congress on hemp, and the White House on rescheduling, three near-identical state ballot initiatives were being filed for the November 2026 election that would end regulated adult-use sales in Massachusetts, Maine and Arizona. The Massachusetts and Maine initiatives would also re-criminalize non-medical home grow.
The Massachusetts campaign has submitted enough signatures to qualify, and awaits validation. Signature collection is ongoing in Maine and Arizona.
While it’s possible that one or more of these initiatives fail to make the ballot, it’s imperative that we take them seriously and prepare for a fight. These are not symbolic protests or fringe efforts. They are coordinated campaigns run by experienced political operatives. And from the sound of it, they may already have a ton of money behind them.
How Much?
On December 19, the Arizona committee chair told the Arizona Capitol Times that the campaign expects to spend $5 million on signature gathering in the state, with an additional $10 to $20 million planned for the broader campaign. In Massachusetts, we estimate that at least $1 million was spent to gather signatures.
Those numbers should get our attention.
Meanwhile, over the past year, we saw a partially successful legislative push in Ohio to chip away at voter-approved adult-use legalization—though the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) was on the ground and helped limit the damage—as well as similar legislative efforts elsewhere.
In the media, fear-based coverage of cannabis dramatically increased across mainstream outlets in 2025, while targeted anti-legalization messaging across right-wing media has worked to soften Republican support. In fact, Gallup reports that Republican support for legalization has dropped from 55 percent to 40 percent since 2023.
That’s Not A Coincidence. It’s A Playbook.
MPP, which has led and won more cannabis ballot initiative campaigns than anyone on either side of this issue, is already working closely with industry allies in Massachusetts to launch a “No” campaign. We expect to do the same in Maine and Arizona.
These initiatives represent the first-ever large-scale coordinated attack on adult-use markets. How we as a cannabis ecosystem respond, and particularly whether and how the national cannabis business community steps up to defend itself and each other, will determine whether this attempt to roll back our progress ends here, or whether it metastasizes.
“End Regulated Adult-Use Markets? How Could They Possibly Win?”
Campaigns do not commit resources at this level without internal polling and strategic modeling that shows a path to victory. And sure enough, in that same Capitol Times piece, the Arizona committee chair alluded to private polling that allegedly showed less than majority support for adult-use markets in the state. The orchestrated collapse of Republican support for legalization over the past two years offers them hope as well.
And if adult-use shows weakness at the ballot box in November, combined with dwindling support for legalization among Republican voters—support that could erode further as prohibitionists use these campaigns to get their message out—it would significantly strengthen the prohibitionists’ hand within the administration, in Congress and in state legislatures across the country.
This is not a drill. It is the moment to come together to defeat the prohibitionists and their initiatives so convincingly that their funders stop taking their calls.
Making The Big Case
MPP, as it has done successfully for more than 30 years, will lead here. And while there will obviously be tactical and messaging variance between states, the core question in all three campaigns is the same: whether regulated markets are safer, smarter and more effective than returning to prohibition. It’s an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.
As recent events have begun to turn the nation’s attention back to cannabis, these campaigns provide us with an opportunity to re-center and re-engage the public conversation—not just in three states, but nationally—around the benefits of regulation versus the harms of prohibition. That conversation will focus on protecting public health and safety, reduced youth access, increased personal freedom, rational law enforcement priorities and creating jobs, economic opportunity and state revenues.
Making the case against prohibition on broad public policy grounds—particularly to reach and to move people who have no particular interest in cannabis or cannabis users—is advocacy’s sweet spot. It’s what we’ve done successfully for decades, and it’s why more than half of the U.S. population now lives in states with regulated markets.
When we do that, and when we defeat these efforts—loudly and convincingly—the results will redound to all aspects of cannabis and cannabinoid policy reform everywhere in the country and at all levels of government.
An Attack On Us All
Make no mistake, this is an attack on the entire industry and cannabis users everywhere—and on legal cannabis itself—regardless of where you live or do business.
With the far better argument on our side, we won’t need to outspend the prohibitionists to beat them. But we will need to be competitive. It’s going to require real resources to run campaigns capable of getting our message and our voters out.
And while we know that everyone’s struggling, with tens of thousands of cannabis-aligned businesses and professionals in the crosshairs—licensees and allied businesses alike—success cannot and will not depend on a small handful of companies or individuals financing the effort, or upon whether a single state’s industry can raise more or less money to defend themselves.
Rather, success will depend on whether the national cannabis business community stands up for themselves and for each other in a show of force by making some meaningful contribution to the common defense.
Failure Is Not An Option
If even one of these initiatives succeeds, it would send a dangerous signal that legal cannabis markets are politically reversible. And that signal would not stop at state borders. It would ripple through capital markets, transactions, insurance underwriting, lending decisions, expansion plans and legislative debates nationwide.
As Dentons partners Joanne Caceres and Hannah King warned in a Marijuana Moment op-ed about the initiatives:
“Imagine the signal sent to investors if legalization proves politically reversible. The risk premium on cannabis assets would skyrocket. Lenders, insurers, and ancillary service providers would likely pull back. M&A activity, already tepid, could stall.”
Even coming close could encourage a second wave of initiatives in states across the country, each requiring significant resources to oppose. These initiatives need to be beaten and beaten soundly to put an end to this.
All Together Now
We cannot leave our brothers and sisters—cannabis consumers, business owners, investors, employees, advocates—in Massachusetts, Maine and Arizona to sink or swim on their own. It’s imperative that we stand with them. Not only because they might otherwise be overwhelmed by prohibitionist spending, but because if they sink, we might all drown.
This year, in addition to both new and ongoing legislative work across multiple states, MPP is gearing back up into campaign mode to fight for the freedom of adults to buy safe, regulated cannabis. And for the future of the legal industry that provides it.
Not just in Maine, Massachusetts, and Arizona, but everywhere.
Adam Smith is executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project.
