Politics
Major Labor Union Urges Massachusetts Voters To Reject Ballot Measure To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization
A top labor union is urging Massachusetts voters to reject an initiative on the November ballot that would roll back the state’s marijuana legalization law.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Massachusetts State Council on Tuesday endorsed the No on 8: Stop the Repeal Campaign.
“With more than 400 adult-use marijuana retail locations across Massachusetts, this campaign is about protecting our communities, supporting local businesses, protecting worker rights and not turning away economic opportunity,” SEIU Massachusetts State Council and Local 509 President Dave Foley said in a press release.
“The fight to protect legal marijuana is about protecting progress,” he said. “We look forward to working with allies across the state to educate voters about the dangers of returning to an underground market where there are fewer workplace protections, less oversight and no opportunities to organize.”
The state labor group represents more than 23,000 human service workers and educators throughout Massachusetts, according to its website.
Stop the Repeal Chairperson Ryan Dominguez said that “since legalization, the marijuana industry has brought in close to $2 billion in state and local revenue, supporting thousands of jobs and generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually in support of schools, public health, community investments and public safety.”
“We are grateful to have the support of the SEIU State Council in helping us to defeat this damaging ballot question and to make sure we stop this ill-advised repeal,” he said. “Massachusetts voters made their voices clear when they chose to legalize marijuana a decade ago, and we cannot allow out-of-state groups to come into the Commonwealth and repeal this law.”
The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, which regulates the legal industry, announced this month that the state has surpassed $10 billion in adult-use cannabis purchases since the market launched in 2018.
CCC Chair Chris Harding told Marijuana Moment that he can’t comment directly on the initiative and that the commission does not take positions on pending ballot questions or legislation, but he said that, in general, “repeal of the adult-use industry could eliminate thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and billions in tax revenue.”
A poll released last month found that Massachusetts voters oppose the marijuana legalization repeal measure, 55 percent to 33 percent.
In July, state officials issued a final determination that the initiative—which would repeal laws allowing the regulated commercial sales of recreational cannabis and home cultivation while maintaining legal possession and continuing the medical marijuana system—will appear on ballot this fall.
While the latest survey results provide some comfort to cannabis reform supporters, advocates are not resting.
A coalition of Massachusetts marijuana business leaders, healthcare professionals and other advocates have launched a campaign to defeat the measure.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) recently issued a warning that passage of the legalization rollback measure would have “disastrous political and economic consequences for legal cannabis markets everywhere.”
“Even a too-close victory would spook markets and incentivize a rash of similar initiatives in states around the country, each costing millions to try and defeat,” the group said.
After the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office determined that organizers for the anti-cannabis proposal had turned in enough valid signatures to put the measure before voters, a marijuana reform advocate filed an objection with the State Ballot Law Commission claiming that various signatures were not genuine, obtained through fraudulent means or were not “signed substantially as registered.”
The body rejected the challenge to the legal marijuana rollback measure, however, clearing it to go before voters to decide.
In June, the campaign behind the anti-legalization ballot measure fired a signature gatherer it says was shown appearing to engage in “wholly unacceptable” conduct in a recent video.
As Marijuana Moment reported, a man petitioning for the Massachusetts initiative as well as a similar anti-cannabis proposal in Maine was depicted in recent social media posts seeming to argue that voters who support legal marijuana access should sign the petitions in order to advance or protect reform.
The campaign later said it has “zero tolerance for any circulation tactics that would mislead petition signers.”
“The identified canvasser was immediately terminated, in coordination with our vendor, upon being made aware of the alleged conduct,” the group said. “The conduct apparent in the video would be wholly unacceptable and does not reflect how this campaign operates. We demand honesty, transparency and professionalism from everyone associated with our effort.”
A video posted to Reddit of the signature gatherer shows the man collecting signatures outside a retail store in Massachusetts next to a sign that says “keep cannabis legal.”
When confronted by a marijuana reform supporter who recorded the petitioner’s interactions with voters, he appeared to be trying to convince them that it is important to qualify the anti-cannabis measure for the ballot in order to then defeat it.
“This is what we’re fighting against right here. That’s why we vote no,” he said. “If we can get this to the ballot right here, we vote no.”
The person who captured the video pointed out that Massachusetts voters already approved marijuana legalization years ago, and that the only way it could be imminently repealed is if the new ballot measure qualified for the November election. If the initiative does not get enough signatures to go before voters, the state’s laws will remain the same.
“It’s my job,” the petitioner insisted, however. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“It’s a group of rich folks from out of state that want to basically take marijuana to when it was a medical marijuana card,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen.”
The same man also appeared to also be gathering signatures for a separate measure in Maine that would similarly repeal laws allowing regulated adult-use marijuana sales and home cultivation rights for adults while keeping possession legal and adding new testing requirements for medical cannabis.
A staffer for the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), whose affiliated group SAM Action is largely funding the anti-cannabis ballot campaigns in both states, declined to comment about the petitioner’s conduct when reached by Marijuana Moment.
The campaigns have previously been accused of misleading petitioning tactics.
In Massachusetts, some voters reported that the campaign used fake cover letters for other ballot measures on unrelated issues like affordable housing and same-day voter registration during the first round of petitioning. Legal cannabis supporters filed an earlier formal complaint about the prohibitionist effort’s tactics, but the State Ballot Law Commission rejected the challenge.
The measure also faced a legal challenge from cannabis industry operatives who argued it contains “impermissibly unrelated subjects,” and that the state attorney general’s official summary is “misleading and deficient.” The state Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments on the litigation challenging the anti-marijuana initiative but it ultimately ruled against the lawsuit.
Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
