TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Backers of a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the recreational use of marijuana in Florida have passed a preliminary hurdle to get on the 2024 ballot.
The Smart & Safe Florida political committee, which has been bankrolled by the multistate cannabis operator Trulieve, had submitted 294,037 valid petition signatures as of Thursday, according to the state Division of Elections website. At least 222,898 signatures are required for the court to review the proposed wording of the measure, a key legal step in the process.
Trulieve, Florida’s largest medical-marijuana operator, has contributed $20 million to the effort, all but $124.58 of the money raised thus far. The committee had spent more than $19 million as of Dec. 31, with almost all of it related to petition gathering and verification.
The Supreme Court will review the wording of the proposal to make sure that it includes only a single subject and would not mislead voters. Justices rejected two ballot proposals in 2021 aimed at allowing recreational use of marijuana.
If the Smart & Safe Florida committee gets Supreme Court approval, it would need to submit a total of 891,589 valid signatures to get on the 2024 ballot, with certain numbers of signatures coming from at least half of the state’s congressional districts.
Under the Adult Personal Use of Marijuana proposal, people 21 or older would be allowed “to possess, purchase, or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for non-medical personal consumption by smoking, ingestion, or otherwise.”
The proposal also would allow any of the state’s licensed medical-marijuana operators to “acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell and distribute such products and accessories.” Florida currently has 22 licensed operators. The initiative would not allow people to grow marijuana for personal use.
Passage of constitutional amendments requires approval from 60% of voters.
The Supreme Court review creates uncertainty.
In June 2021, justices said a recreational-marijuana proposal by the political committee Sensible Florida included ballot wording that would mislead voters. The court two months earlier rejected a recreational-pot proposal by the committee Make It Legal Florida.
Backers of the current proposal said they relied on guidance from the court’s 2021 rulings. The plan also gives lawmakers the final say on how the marijuana industry is structured.
The ballot-initiative process is a costly and complicated endeavor, due to several changes passed by Florida lawmakers in recent years aimed at making it more difficult for proposals to get on the ballot and to pass.
Perhaps the most challenging of the restrictions prohibits petition gatherers from being paid by the signature, which requires workers to be paid a daily or hourly wage. Petition gatherers, who often travel from one state to another working on ballot initiatives, also must register with Florida.
The ban on per-signature payments and the other requirements have more than doubled the cost of placing proposals on the ballot, experts in the industry say.
For example, supporters of a 2016 constitutional amendment broadly authorizing medical marijuana spent less than $14 million to put the measure on the ballot and get it passed by more than 71% of voters.
“For those who wanted to make it more costly and more difficult, they can drop the mic. Mission accomplished, as it were,” said Steve Vancore, a spokesman for Trulieve.
“It’s far more expensive and far more complicated than even us going into this thought it would be. And that’s why … $20 million, six months in the field, not even halfway there (with signatures),” he said.
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