Politics
Massachusetts Advocates Launch Campaign To Defeat Marijuana Legalization Rollback Ballot Initiative
A coalition of Massachusetts marijuana business leaders, healthcare professionals and other advocates have launched a campaign to defeat an initiative to roll back that state’s cannabis legalization law that is expected to appear on the November ballot.
The Stop the Repeal Campaign held a press conference on Thursday to announce the effort to urge voters to reject the proposal, which would repeal laws allowing the regulated commercial sales of recreational marijuana while maintaining legal possession and continuing the medical cannabis system.
“Repealing recreational cannabis laws in Massachusetts will not only take us backwards—it will negatively impact our communities that are already struggling with budget shortfalls and locally owned small businesses that have invested their life savings into building their legal businesses that create jobs and support local economies,” Ryan Dominguez, chair of the campaign said.
“Since legalization, the cannabis industry has brought in close to $2 billion in state and local revenue, generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually in support of public health, public safety, and many other wide-reaching community investments,” he said. “We look forward to standing alongside our allies as we educate voters on what this ballot initiative actually does and fight back against out-of-state special interest groups pushing this regressive policy.”
Fitchburg Mayor Sam Squailia also spoke at Thursday’s press conference.
“At a time when state and local governments are already facing significant budget pressures, repealing recreational cannabis laws would be a costly mistake,” she said in support of the campaign. “Legal cannabis generates critical revenue that communities like Fitchburg rely on to fund our schools, improve transportation, and support essential services.
“Recriminalizing adult-use cannabis would not only turn back the clock on sensible policy, it would blow a hole in state and municipal budgets at a moment when we simply cannot afford it,” Squailia said. “Our residents deserve investments in our communities, not cuts to the programs they depend on every day.”
The campaign has highlighted the fact that Massachusetts has generated more than $2 billion in tax revenue from legal marijuana sales and has over 700 licensed business that support at least 20,000 jobs in the state.
Earlier this month, the campaign behind the legalization rollback measure, the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, 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. Legal cannabis supporters filed a formal complaint about the prohibitionist effort’s tactics, but the State Ballot Law Commission rejected the challenge.
Under state law, Massachusetts ballot campaigns must turn in signatures in two waves. After the first submission, the legislature gets a chance to enact proposed ballot measures after organizers submit an initial round of petitions. Lawmakers last month declined to act on the anti-marijuana measure, however, and now organizers need to submit additional 12,429 certified signatures by July 1 to make the November ballot.
The measure 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 challenge.
Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
