Recreational marijuana Amendment 3 backers, DeSantis square off
TALLAHASSEE - Florida next week could join two dozen states that allow recreational use of marijuana, after a nine-figure campaign bankrolled by the state's largest medical-marijuana operator amid intense opposition from Gov. Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis has pulled out all the stops to prevent the initiative, which appears as Amendment 3 on Tuesday's ballot, from reaching the 60% voter approval needed for constitutional amendments in Florida.
The proposal would effectively decriminalize possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana by adults ages 21 and over.
Trulieve, a Quincy-based company whose medical-marijuana sales eclipse its 24 state competitors, has dropped nearly $143 million on the initiative — more than 95 percent of roughly $150 million collected by the Smart & Safe Florida political committee sponsoring the measure.
The proposal would give Trulieve and the state's other medical-marijuana companies the ability to start selling euphoria-inducing cannabis products to anyone in Florida, including tourists, age 21 or older. With 156 retail locations throughout the state, Trulieve sells more than a third of all medical-marijuana products — including smokable marijuana — in Florida.
DeSantis has targeted contributions by Trulieve, which is publicly traded on the Canadian stock market, as he travels the state and appears on national television to fight the proposed amendment. The governor contends the proposal's passage would cement the company's "monopoly" on the cannabis market in Florida.
"I don't think there's ever been one company that's put in this much money for one ballot measure in all of American history. And so the only way they can justify that is because this amendment is going to guarantee them a massive profit stream," DeSantis said at a rally-style event this week.
State opposition
Without identifying her by name, DeSantis repeatedly calls out Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers, who shepherded the company into one of the nation's largest cannabis sellers in less than a decade. Trulieve was one of Florida's first licensed operators, after voters approved a 2016 constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana. The company also operates in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The governor has enlisted numerous state agency heads — including leaders of the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Children and Families, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and the Department of Health — to join his crusade against the pot proposal and has unleashed a variety of state resources to campaign against the measure.
State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, as an example, recently released guidance warning about dangers of marijuana and advising health-care providers to regularly drug-screen patients ages 12 and older. The highway safety agency has released public-service announcements warning against driving while under the influence of marijuana.
DeSantis also has harnessed state resources to oppose another ballot proposal, Amendment 4, aimed at enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution.
Rivers, who jokingly refers to herself as a "recovering attorney," in the past has tempered her public criticism of DeSantis and his administration, which regulates her business.
But she called the governor's critiques "hogwash" and predicted they could have a reverse impact on voters, who she said "see through" his attacks.
"As more and more Floridians are understanding the fact that we have a state government who is spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to electioneer and to perpetrate propaganda on a citizen-led ballot initiative, I think folks are not happy about it," Rivers told The News Service of Florida in a phone interview Thursday. "I think that it just solidifies further the reasons why Amendment 3 is going to pass."
DeSantis also has focused on what could pose a weakness in the proposal for people who might otherwise support decriminalizing marijuana: The measure does not include allowing people to grow their own marijuana.
"They do provide that you have basically an unfettered right to possess and smoke marijuana, but only if you buy it from them. They do not provide you with the right to grow your own product in your backyard," DeSantis said at an event on Tuesday. "So they're forcing business into this big weed cartel."
Amendment proponents
But proponents of the pot plan contend that including a provision that would have allowed people to grow marijuana would not have passed muster with the Florida Supreme Court because proposed constitutional amendments must have only a single subject.
Rivers said home grow "is something that Trulieve as an organization has been supportive of since our inception." She said a bipartisan pair of state lawmakers — Sen. Joe Gruters, a Sarasota Republican, and Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat — have pledged to sponsor a bill next year that would allow people to grow their own weed.
Gruters, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, isn't the only high-profile Republican to part ways with DeSantis on the pot plan.
Former President Donald Trump, a Florida resident who is at the top of Tuesday's ballot as the GOP presidential nominee, endorsed Amendment 3 on hisTruth Social site.
In a bipartisan blitz this week, Smart & Safe Florida released an ad featuring Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is hoping to defeat Trump in the race for the White House.
"We need to legalize it," Harris said.
Trump said he intends to vote for the measure.
"It's gotta be done in a very concerted, lawful way. The way they're doing it in Florida, it's gonna be very good," Trump said in the ad.