Florida adult-use marijuana legalization campaign says it’s still alive

In defiance of the state elections officials who declared the campaign kaput on Sunday, the marijuana multistate operator-funded effort to legalize adult-use cannabis in Florida said Monday it can still qualify for the November ballot.

According to Secretary of State Cord Byrd, the Smart and Safe Florida campaign failed to collect the required 880,000 valid signatures from registered voters by a Feb. 1 deadline.

But Byrd’s declaration on Sunday “is premature,” a campaign spokesperson said.

Florida is the country’s largest medical-only cannabis market. But with patient growth in the state slowing, legalization represents a sizable opportunity for the legal industry.

But with Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Republican Party dead-set against adult-use marijuana legalization, passing a constitutional amendment via voter initiative is legalization’s best – and only – chance.

Trulieve Cannabis has spent more than $200 million on marijuana legalization

After spending more than $150 million on a 2024 legalization bid that fell short, Tallahassee-headquartered MSO Trulieve Cannabis Corp. has poured at least $52 million into qualifying legalization for the 2026 ballot, campaign finance records show.

According to the state Division of Elections, the campaign submitted only 783,592 verified signatures by Sunday’s deadline, as the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

But that tally is far short of what the campaign submitted, and county elections officials are still counting signatures, according to a campaign spokesperson.

“We submitted over 1.4 million signatures and believe, when they are all counted, we will have more than enough to make the ballot,” a campaign spokesperson told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Florida marijuana legalization campaign vows to fight on

State officials – including DeSantis, who openly despises marijuana legalization and has lobbied against it – have attempted to thwart the measure nearly every step of the way, going as far as to use law enforcement powers to thwart cannabis reform.

On Jan. 20, state Attorney General James Uthmeier, DeSantis’ former chief of staff, said that almost a dozen canvassers had been arrested on suspicion of violating new elections restrictions DeSantis signed into law last year.

That came after Byrd sought to invalidate nearly 200,000 signatures the campaign claimed were valid, sparking a legal challenge that so far the state has won.

Uthmeier said last week that the election fraud probe has expanded to every county in the state.

The new election laws are the focus of a lawsuit that has its first court hearing scheduled for Feb. 9.