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Tag: Florida Amendment 3

  • Trulieve sues Florida GOP for defamation over ad featuring ‘Big Weed’ character

    Trulieve sues Florida GOP for defamation over ad featuring ‘Big Weed’ character

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    Florida’s largest medical-marijuana company filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday accusing the state Republican Party of launching an “intentionally deceptive campaign” to mislead voters about a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational use of marijuana.

    With voting by mail already underway in the Nov. 5 election, the lawsuit filed by Trulieve, Inc. — which has spent nearly $93 million on the recreational-marijuana initiative — also accused the owners of two Fort Myers-based television stations of running a “demonstrably false” ad “trying to fool Florida voters” into voting against what will appear on the ballot as Amendment 3.

    “The GOP knew that the claims in the deceptive mailer and ad were false, intentionally deceptive, and duplicitous but published them anyway in order to trick Florida voters into voting against a ballot initiative that would legalize the recreational use of cannabis in Florida,” the lawsuit said.

    The TV ad features a gardener who sees a news broadcast saying that the amendment could “legalize recreational marijuana.” The gardener rushes to start planting but is confronted by a “Big Weed” character that says, “Actually, we wrote the amendment, so we’re the only ones that can grow it.”

    The inability of people to grow their own weed has become a major issue in efforts to defeat the proposal. Opponents of the marijuana measure, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, contend that the proposal will help the state’s “monopoly” of licensed medical-marijuana companies because it will allow them to begin selling recreational pot. The measure also would allow the Legislature to expand the number of operators.

    “Amendment 3 cannot prohibit something that is already prohibited, and the plain text of Amendment 3 says nothing about the home cultivation of cannabis and does not change the current state of the law with respect to that issue,” the lawsuit said.

    Trulieve’s lawyers argued that the “Big Weed” character “is reasonably understood” by Florida voters to be Trulieve, because the company is “the largest cannabis manufacturer in the state, and because prominent Florida Republicans have publicly claimed that Trulieve authored Amendment 3.”

    The “gist of the ad” is that Trulieve drafted the proposal to minimize competition, the lawsuit alleged.

    According to the lawsuit, the Republican Party of Florida “paid the media defendants” to broadcast the “deceptive” television ad.

    The challenge also focuses in part on mailers sent out by the Republican Party of Florida calling the marijuana proposal “a power grab by mega marijuana corporations, eliminating their competition and enshrining their monopoly advantage in the Constitution forever.”

    The mailer is false because the proposal would allow the Legislature to increase the number of marijuana operators in the state, the lawsuit alleged.

    “In truth, Florida has a competitive market of 25 licensed” medical-marijuana operators, “in which no single company accounts for even half the market,” lawyers for Quincy-based Trulieve wrote in the lawsuit filed in the 2nd Judicial Circuit. “And rather than eliminating competition, the ballot initiative would increase competition by allowing the state to authorize additional licenses to grow and sell cannabis.”

    In addition to the Republican Party of Florida, the lawsuit nameas defendants Sun Broadcasting, Inc., which owns and operates the WXCW station, and Fort Myers Broadcasting Company, which owns and operates station WINK and is affiliated with Sun Broadcasting.

    Trulieve is the main money source behind the ballot initiative, providing about $92.8 million of the nearly $101.4 million in cash and in-kind contributions made to the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, which is sponsoring the proposal.

    State Republican Chairman Evan Power fired back Wednesday against the company.

    “It is so funny that a company that puts almost $100 million into a political campaign is so sensitive about honest TV ads,” Power said in a text message. “The proponents of Amendment 3 are trying to take down these ads that they know are truthful and are working. That is why they are using lawfare to try to silence us, but we will not be deterred in our efforts. If this huge, powerful corporation can’t handle it, then they should go sit at the little kid’s table.”

    The TV stations did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit, which was provided to The News Service of Florida and filed in Gadsden County.

    Trulieve has 151 dispensaries throughout Florida — almost double the number of any other medical-marijuana operator. Trulieve sold nearly 38 percent of the total amount of smokable marijuana sold statewide during the week that ended Sept. 26, according to a report issued by the Florida Department of Health. The company sold about 30 percent of other products sold statewide, the report said.

    Trulieve filed the lawsuit “to set the record straight, to vindicate its rights under civil law, to hold the defendants accountable for deceiving voters, and to recover compensatory and punitive damages,” the lawsuit said.

    Republican leaders in Florida largely have come out in opposition to the marijuana proposal.

    DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, is heading two political committees aimed at defeating Amendment 3 and Amendment 4, a measure seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. The DeSantis administration has used state resources to oppose both measures. As an example, the Florida Department of Transportation recently released public-service announcements that say passage of the marijuana proposal could lead to more car crashes and higher auto-insurance premiums.

    The state Republican Party in May approved a resolution opposing Amendment 3, saying the proposal would endanger the state’s “family-friendly business and tourism climates.”

    Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, is backing the measure, however.

    The lawsuit filed Wednesday repeatedly said Florida has 25 licensed medical-marijuana companies and that state regulators have accepted applications for another 22 licenses.

    Trulieve filed the lawsuit about a week after sending letters to the TV stations demanding that they pull down the ad.

    “The GOP acted with actual malice, either knowingly or recklessly disregarding that the statements it published about Trulieve were false … and — when specifically put on notice of the truth and asked to retract — refusing to retract, because the GOP intends to dupe Florida voters into voting against a ballot initiative that would legalize the recreational use of cannabis in Florida,” the lawsuit said.

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    Dara Kam, News Service of Florida

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  • DeSantis-linked anti-pot PAC receives $1 million from group affiliated with co-founders of ‘abusive’ teen drug rehab program

    DeSantis-linked anti-pot PAC receives $1 million from group affiliated with co-founders of ‘abusive’ teen drug rehab program

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    A political committee tied to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that is actively fighting Florida’s pot legalization ballot initiative received one of its largest contributions to date this month from a nonprofit created by the late GOP mega-donor and dedicated drug war hawk Betty Sembler.

    Sembler, who died at age 90 in 2022, was a co-founding member of the controversial teen drug rehab program Straight Inc., along with her late husband Mel Sembler, a former U.S. ambassador under President George Bush.

    Straight Inc., founded half a century ago in Florida, has been described by at least one former patient as “torture,” as one of several prominent programs that blossomed within the widely criticized “troubled-teen” industry, before Straight was forced out of existence.

    Campaign finance records more recently show the Semblers’ Florida-based group Save Our Society From Drugs contributed $1 million this month to Keep Florida Clean, a committee chaired by DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier. The Keep Florida Clean committee, launched in July, was created as an opposition campaign to Florida’s Amendment 3, which would legalize recreational marijuana use for adults aged 21 and older, if approved by Florida voters this November.

    The late Semblers, based in St. Petersburg prior to their deaths, tossed sizable campaign contributions toward GOP politicians during their time (including DeSantis), and had an extensive history of funding state-level campaigns against efforts to legalize medical marijuana.

    According to The Nation, Save Our Society From Drugs for instance also helped bankroll an unsuccessful campaign against Colorado’s historic marijuana legalization ballot initiative in 2012. The group was reportedly the opposition campaign’s biggest funder. The Semblers’ affiliated nonprofit, the Drug Free America Foundation, similarly threw money into a campaign against a medical marijuana legalization measure in Florida in 2014 (which received majority support from voters, but fell short of the 60 percent threshold needed to pass) and a successful initiative to legalize medical marijuana use in 2016, state campaign finance records show. 

    The St. Petersburg power couple, in the business of retail real estate development, were reportedly close to the Bush family and eventually (if warily) fundraised for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, after the campaigns of fellow presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, to their chagrin, flopped.

    Decades earlier, however, the Semblers became well-known figures in the war on drugs. In 1976, the Semblers co-founded teen residential rehab program Straight Inc., which reportedly attracted the attention and praise of first lady Nancy Reagan, prior to her own rollout of the infamous “Just Say No” to drugs campaign.

    Straight Inc., later hit with multiple lawsuits over its treatment of children, was forced to shutter its facilities in the early 1990s (including one in Orlando) after a series of scandals emerged, involving allegations of mental, psychological and physical abuse.

    “It robbed me of my innocence,” one 40-year-old survivor told the Tampa Bay Times (then the St. Petersburg Times) in 2002, after being forced into a Straight Inc. program in Florida at 16 years old.

    Richard Bradbury, another patient from the Tampa Bay area who even graduated from and became a staffer at a Straight program before “campaigning to destroy the organization,” later described the program to the Times as “pure child abuse” and “torture.”

    Investigators in California found that teen patients at a Straight Inc. facility there had similarly been subjected to “unusual punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threats, mental abuse … and interference with daily living functions such as eating, sleeping and toileting” prior to its eventual closure.

    Yet the couple nonetheless persevered in their anti-drug advocacy. After the downfall of Straight, the Semblers reportedly changed its name to the Drug Free America Foundation, gutting the treatment component of their advocacy, and created the affiliated Save Our Society From Drugs. The nonprofit is still active and based in St. Pete, along with their son Brent Sembler, who also openly moonlights these days as a political fundraiser for the GOP in addition to serving as vice chairman of his late father’s development company.

    State campaign finance records show that the Save Our Society From Drugs’ contribution to Keep Florida Clean is the third-largest contribution it has received so far since its launch, behind a $1.1 million donation from Secure Florida’s Future Inc., a nonprofit based in Tallahassee, and a $12 million donation from billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth Griffin.

    The anti-pot political committee has raised nearly $14.5 million since it was first launched in July, complementing the separate DeSantis-linked Florida Freedom Fund PAC, which is similarly raising funds to oppose both Amendment 3 and Florida’s abortion rights measure, Amendment 4. Meanwhile, Smart & Safe Florida, the cannabis industry-backed committee leading efforts to pass Amendment 3, has raised over $100 million since its launch in 2022, with most of its money coming in from cannabis dispensaries like Trulieve.

    Despite DeSantis’ voiced opposition to Amendment 3 (due in part to his concern that it will make the state smell bad), the ballot measure has garnered cross-partisan support in the business-friendly Sunshine State, earning endorsements from former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the Florida Young Republicans, the Libertarian Party of Florida, the Florida Democratic Party and former GOP chairman and state Sen. Joe Gruters. The Florida Chamber of Commerce (confusingly) announced its own opposition to the initiative on April Fools Day in a news released emailed to press at exactly 4:20 p.m.

    If Amendment 3 is approved by voters, Florida would join roughly half of the rest of the country that has similarly legalized recreational marijuana use, which advocates say could help boost the state and local economies, and reduce dangers associated with unregulated pot. Amendment 3 needs a “yes” vote from at least 60 percent of voters in order to pass.

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    McKenna Schueler

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  • Florida Gov. DeSantis defends targeting marijuana petition workers

    Florida Gov. DeSantis defends targeting marijuana petition workers

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    While supporters of proposed constitutional amendments face stringent requirements for gathering petition signatures, Gov. Ron DeSantis contends additional steps could be needed.

    As he crusades against proposals on the November ballot that would allow recreational use of marijuana and enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution, DeSantis this week suggested more anti-fraud measures are needed.

    “There’s a lot of money that’s at stake here,” DeSantis said Monday during an appearance in Orlando. “People make money off the petition process. There’s an incentive to commit fraud. The Legislature tried to address it, but I don’t think that they’ve addressed it adequately.”

    Backers of proposed constitutional amendments had to submit at least 891,523 valid petition signatures to get initiatives on this year’s ballot.

    The Republican-controlled Legislature and DeSantis in recent years have banned a longstanding practice of paying petition gatherers based on the number of signatures they collect. They also have required petition forms to include information identifying petition gatherers, who are required to register with the state.

    DeSantis’ comment came as he responded to a question about the recent arrest of a petition gatherer amid an investigation by the state’s Office of Election Crimes and Security.

    Last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that Colton Brady, 34 of Fayetteville, Ga., was arrested Sept. 5 on eight counts of petition fraud crimes, including criminal use of a dead person’s information and submitting false voter registration information.

    An agency news release said Brady’s arrest was tied to “petition fraud on the personal use of marijuana initiative” and that Brady submitted 71 invalid forms.

    But the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, which is leading efforts to pass this year’s recreational-marijuana initiative, said Brady wasn’t part of their ballot drive, despite the possible inference by the state agency. The committee said Brady collected signatures for another marijuana measure. The Smart & Safe initiative will appear on the November ballot as Amendment 3.

    “That initiative (involving Brady) was completely separate and independent from Amendment 3 and these signatures were not related to Amendment 3,” Smart & Safe Florida said in a statement. “This individual was never paid by Smart & Safe Florida nor do we have any record of affiliation with him.”

    DeSantis backed the FDLE announcement as “accurate.”

    “This was somebody who had submitted fraudulent petitions, I think, during the 2022 (election) cycle. That’s a fraud. I mean, we’re not going to turn our backs on that,” DeSantis said.

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    Jim Turner, the News Service of Florida

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  • Scientologist megadonor gives $1 million to DeSantis PAC fighting Florida abortion, marijuana amendments

    Scientologist megadonor gives $1 million to DeSantis PAC fighting Florida abortion, marijuana amendments

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    Photo via Ron DeSantis/Twitter

    A political committee linked to Gov. Ron DeSantis raised more than $1.11 million from Aug. 24 to 30, and the bulk of it came from one local Scientologist megadonor.

    The Florida Freedom Fund, a committee chaired by DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, raised $1,115,025 during the period and had almost $3.49 million on hand as of Aug. 30, a report posted on the state Division of Elections website shows.

    Most of the money received during the period came in a $1 million contribution from Belleair Shores resident Trish Duggan, who is also the “world’s top donor to Church of Scientology,” reports the Tampa Bay Times.

    The Times also reports that she and her now ex-husband, billionaire venture capitalist Bob Duggan, have donated more than $360 million to Scientology.

    Trish Duggan, a major donor to Donald Trump, was notably a primary financier behind the church’s wave of secretive land purchases in downtown Clearwater, which began in 2017.

    The Florida Freedom Fund was launched last May, and aims to stop a pair of ballot initiatives that would allow recreational use of marijuana (Amendment 3) and write abortion rights into the state Constitution (Amendment 4).

    Earlier this week, Republican presidential nominee Trump came out in support of Florida’s recreational pot amendment, and claims he will be voting for Amendment 3 this November.

    “As President, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens,” wrote Trump on Truth Social Sunday night.

    However, the former president’s opinions on abortion are a lot less clear. Trump has previously stated that the six-week abortion ban, currently in place in states like Florida, is too harsh, but has since walked that back.

    This story first appeared in our sister publication Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

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    Colin Wolf

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  • DeSantis official criticizes Florida’s Amendment 3 for not including ‘home-grow’

    DeSantis official criticizes Florida’s Amendment 3 for not including ‘home-grow’

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    Ron DeSantis has made it clear that he opposes Amendment 3, the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall in Florida to legalize recreational use of cannabis for adults 21 and older.

    But a member of his staff offered a novel argument to oppose the measure on social media on Tuesday: that the measure does not allow for “home grow,” or the ability for individuals to grow their own supply of marijuana.

    “So here’s the thing: Amendment 3 would create a monopoly on recreational,” Christina Pushaw wrote on X. “It also doesn’t allow home growing. Why is it that other states that have passed recreational marijuana also allow individuals to home grow, but Florida’s Amendment 3 specifically does NOT? It’s not about ‘freedom,’ it’s corporate greed.”

    Of the 24 states that have legalized the adult-use marijuana market, only three maintain criminal prohibitions on home cultivation, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). A number of cannabis activists have called for allowing home grow ever since medical marijuana was approved by voters in Florida in 2016, and some have complained that Amendment 3 wouldn’t allow that.

    The Libertarian Party of Florida endorsed Amendment 3 last month, but in a statement said that while it “is a commendable advance, it does not go far enough.”

    “We must continue to advocate for the right to homegrown cannabis, allowing Floridians to cultivate their own plants for personal use,” said Matthew Johnson, the party’s vice chair and communications committee chair.

    Kim Rivers, CEO of Trulieve, the biggest marijuana company in Florida, which has spent more than $60 million to try to get Amendment 3 passed, responded to Pushaw on X by saying, “Great news — it looks like @GovRonDeSantis supports home grow in Florida per his spokesperson!”

    Rivers went on to say that particular provision could not be included due to a Florida Constitution provision permitting only a single subject to be mentioned in the text of the amendment — a fact she said DeSantis and his team are aware of.

    “[T]his is absolutely something we can support via implementation in the legislature and with the Governors support we can get it done!” she added.

    When other individuals chimed in and criticized Trulieve for allegedly opposing legalization of home-grown cannabis in Florida because it would hurt the company’s own bottom line, Rivers insisted that wasn’t the case.

    “We have supported home grow in every market we do business is,” she wrote on X. “We sell clones in those markets that allow it. In Florida we have carried petitions and contributed to home grow amendments. We see it as a market expansion not a challenge!”

    The single-subject rule

    This is what Article XI, Section 3 of the Florida Constitution says regarding the single-subject rule:

    “The power to propose the revision or amendment of any portion or portions of this constitution by initiative is reserved to the people, provided that, any such revision or amendment, except for those limiting the power of government to raise revenue, shall embrace but one subject and matter directly connected therewith.”

    “It seems to me that the DeSantis administration is really reaching deep in their playbook and coming up short,” said Chris Cano, executive director of the Suncoast Chapter of NORML. “I’ve heard that talking point [by critics] long before DeSantis even chose to inject himself into the whole Amendment 3 and hemp industry battle.”

    Cano referred to the fact that hemp companies, grateful for DeSantis’ veto of a bill that would have influenced their industry, have begun contributing financially to efforts to bring down Amendment 3.

    “For those in the hemp industry against Amendment 3, that has been a frequent talking point,” he said, adding, “It’s an ignorant one because of Florida’s single-subject rule makes amendments what they are. It’s just a red herring we’ve heard since the amendment qualified via the Florida Supreme Court.”

    In 2018, Tampa adult club entrepreneur Joe Redner filed a lawsuit in state court arguing he should be able to grow marijuana to obtain a sufficient quality of specific cannabinoids that he needed to treat his diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer, according to court documents.

    A Leon County circuit judge ruled that he should be able to do so, but the Florida Department of Health appealed to the First District Court of Appeal, which blocked the circuit judge’s ruling from taking effect. The Florida Supreme Court declined to take the case up in November 2019.

    Morgan Hill, a spokesperson for Smart & Safe, the political committee advocating for the passage of Amendment 3, said she has heard questions not only about home grown from individuals curious about why it wasn’t included in the ballot language, but also for the retroactive decriminalization of possession of cannabis.

    “It’s because the Florida requirements are different than they are in other states for ballot measures,” she said. “Our position has been the same from the beginning. You should ask the governor’s team and Christina what she thinks.”

    Money fight

    Keep Florida Clean, a political committee formed to oppose Amendment 3, has raised more than $12 million to date, with most of that coming from Miami hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin. Gov. DeSantis’ Florida Freedom Fund PAC as well as the Republican Party of Florida are also raising money to oppose the measure.

    Amendment 3 needs 60% support from the voting public to become the law. While several polls have shown the measure drawing beyond that threshold, a Florida Atlantic University survey published last week showed it getting 56%, a majority but not the margin needed for victory.

    Pushaw previously worked as a spokesperson for the governor’s office. After leaving to work on his presidential campaign last year, she now is listed in state records as a senior management analyst in the executive office of the governor.

    The Phoenix reached out to the governor’s press office for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

    Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: [email protected]. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

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    Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

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