Massachusetts could become the first state to repeal its law allowing the sale of recreational marijuana after activists claimed to have secured enough petition signatures to force a referendum.
Should the anti-cannabis movement succeed in getting the issue onto November’s midterm election ballot papers, the state could become the first to overturn legalization of the drug, which it voted in to allow in 2016.
Its potential return to prohibition is not the only question competing for spots on Massachusetts ballots, however, with the state also contemplating including one on repealing a 2024 gun law and one on ending party primaries, according to The Boston Globe.
Massachusetts will officially certify its ballot questions in July.
Wendy Wakeman, a Republican strategist and spokesperson for the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, the group behind the push to end marijuana sales, has said she is “cautiously optimistic” that the referendum will come to pass.
But the marijuana industry is already pushing back. A competing organization, Stop the Repeal, is currently making the case to businesses for allowing marijuana to stay on dispensary shelves, pointing out the lucrative tax revenue its sales reap for the state every year.
“I hope everybody understands how real of a threat it is,” the group’s chairman Ryan Dominguez said.
“The fact that we’ve gotten here today is absolutely insane,” said Alex Gonzalez, president of Calyx Containers, a cannabis packaging company founded in Massachusetts.
“If we are significantly outgunned and we don’t get our messages out, then there is a risk that they could win.”
Financial might has typically decided the success or failure of local ballot campaigns in recent years, according to the Globe. The pro-marijuana side could struggle with fundraising due to the oversaturated nature of the current market and an associated lull in the price of pot.
If the law were to be overturned, recreational cannabis would remain on sale until 2028 to allow for dispensaries to pivot or adapt their business models and no new ban would apply to medical marijuana.
Consuming marijuana in public is already not permitted, a situation that would not change, while $100 fines could become the norm, with those under 21 years old likely to be forced to go on a drug awareness course as an additional penalty.
Those opposed to the availability of cannabis say they are not advocating for tougher policing but object to the commercialization they have seen over the last decade, which, they feel, has led to social problems arising from increased potency, growing usage among young people and worsening road safety because of an increased prevalence of stoned drivers.
“I don’t think [people] voted for a pot shop on every corner... smelling weed everywhere they go and having to protect their kids,” said Kevin Sabet, president of the Virginia-based anti-marijuana group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which has donated $1.5 million to the Massachusetts campaign this year. “We’re finally having some buyer’s remorse.”
Sabet’s organization has been criticized for seeking to influence policy outside of its own state, having also donated to an equivalent cause in Maine, but he has argued that outsiders also made financial contributions to campaigns on the issue in 2016, adding that he lived in Massachusetts himself until 2017 so feels personally invested.
Another controversy that has raged locally concerns petition-gatherers allegedly misleading members of the public into signing for their cause, after a video was shared online of an anti-marijuana activist displaying a Stop the Repeal logo when asked for their credentials.
Wakeman said the person responsible has been fired and called such manipulation “wholly unacceptable” while the State Ballot Law Commission, answering to Secretary of State William Galvin’s office, has said it has no further concerns regarding fraudulent signatures, citing a lack of evidence.
One University of New Hampshire poll from February found that legalized marijuana was likely to survive a challenge in the state, with 63 percent of voters strongly or somewhat against repeal and only 20 percent strongly or somewhat in favor, with the remainder unsure or undecided.
However, another survey from the Retailers Association of Massachusetts conducted in April and May produced a closer result, with only 48 percent against repeal and 41 percent keen to see an end to marijuana sales. A further 11 percent was undecided.
