Let Floridians vote on recreational pot
Just let the people of Florida vote on marijuana legalization, already. A proposed constitutional amendment for recreational marijuana is under review by the Florida Supreme Court. It has already gotten enough signatures to get on the 2024 ballot. Now the court has to make sure the ballot item is written so that it addresses a single subject and is clear to voters.
But the “free state of Florida” has jumped into the middle of this process for reasons that seem blatantly political, designed to halt an effort that might increase liberal voter turnout at the polls next year or at least suppress the voice of the people. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, in court papers, has urged the justices to reject the language as misleading.
But is she trying to protect Florida voters? Or her boss, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and his run for the GOP nomination for president?
She offers a grab bag of objections that are a stretch, at best. For example, she apparently thinks that if Florida gives residents the right to use marijuana for recreation, that would fool them into thinking they’ll have the same permission across the country. Yes, marijuana remains illegal under federal law. But 23 states — not quite half — allow recreational marijuana. Voters have had plenty of time to get used to the idea that it is legal in some states and not in others.
The state then adds a weirdly insulting note, saying in court papers that since “most Americans cannot name a single Supreme Court justice” — that’s according to a 2018 Newsweek poll — no one should assume the average voter knows marijuana remains federally illegal. In other words, Floridians are too dumb to figure it out.
Nice move, as DeSantis stumps for votes while battling that “unlikable” label.
The other objections seem to center mostly on regulation and who stands to make money on this potential expansion of marijuana laws in Florida. Medical marijuana has been legal since 2016. Trulieve, which already operates many of the state’s Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers, or MMTCs, is the driving force — and the money — behind this latest initiative, though a political committee known as Smart & Safe Florida has its name on the petition drive.
The state argues that the wording of the measure is misleading because even though it suggests that entities other than licensed MMTCs would be able to jump into the recreational marijuana trade, that’s not true. And the proposal would wind up increasing “the Sponsor’s monopolistic stranglehold on the marijuana market to the detriment of Floridians.”
And the state also acknowledges that the Legislature has the right to authorize licensure of other facilities. Seems like that’s a pretty good solution.
Two other times, in 2014 and 2016, recreational marijuana measures made it onto the ballot but failed because they didn’t get at least 60% of the vote, the high bar rightly required for constitutional amendments. In 2021, the Florida Supreme Court rejected a recreational marijuana initiative on grounds that the ballot summary did not address the contradiction with federal law. This version seems to do so pretty clearly, saying, in part: “Applies to Florida law; does not change, or immunize violations of, federal law.”
But the politics of this could still be the deciding factor. The court deciding whether the language passes muster is filled with DeSantis appointees; five of the seven members were chosen by the governor. That shouldn’t matter and, yet, in these partisan times, it might.
DeSantis, too, has said that he wouldn’t legalize recreational marijuana nationally if he were to win the presidency. Though he signed into law in 2019 a measure that lifted a state ban on smokable forms of pot, he recently told a South Carolina audience to forget about any federal action to decriminalize use of the drug if he’s elected: “I don’t think we would do that,” he said.
He did, however, sign into law this year a measure that means Black farmers would finally be granted licenses to grow, process and sell medical marijuana. That’s a positive change, after years of delay.
Black farmers contended that none of them met the license-eligibility criteria. Applicants were required to have operated as Florida nurseries for 30 years. The farmers also said that, for years, lending discrimination had prevented them from being able to sustain operations over three decades without interruption.
We can’t help but wonder if the real worries here are political. Will the justices be able to decide the issues dispassionately, without taking into account the loudly expressed displeasure of the DeSantis administration — which, in court documents, called the effort by Trulieve “a reckless violation of federal” law?
And would the issue bring out more left-leaning voters? The marijuana issue is a popular one. Medical marijuana was legalized in Florida in 2016, with a whopping 71% of the vote. In 2018, the only Democrat elected statewide was Nikki Fried, a former marijuana lobbyist who became state agriculture commissioner. She is now the head of the state Democratic Party.
More than 1 million people signed the petition to put this latest recreational pot question on the ballot to allow voters — not the state — to decide whether marijuana should be legal for recreational use for people over 21 in Florida. We hope they get to make that decision.