The latest effort to legalize marijuana in Florida encountered a legal setback but those behind a new amendment insist they still can qualify for the 2026 ballot.
Florida election officials have told local election supervisors to toss out 200,000 petition signatures that they say are invalid. Smart & Safe Florida, the group pushing the initiative, and which has relied on millions from the state’s largest medical marijuana provider, Trulieve, challenged the decision in court. But in a ruling from the bench last week by Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper sided with the state.
Smart & Safe announced Tuesday that it would not appeal Cooper’s ruling.
“We are confident in the ability to submit enough petitions to make ballot position so long as the state does its job in good faith to process the submitted petitions and accurately report the verification totals,” the organization said in a prepared statement.
To place an initiative on the ballot, the group must gather more than 880,000 signatures from Florida voters. Smart & Safe says it still has more than 1 million signatures even without the ones disqualified by the state.
The deadline to have the petition signatures validated is Feb. 1.
In its statement, the organization urged Secretary of State Cord Byrd to “timely process the petitions and update its reporting of the verified petitions as required by law. The public deserves to have their petitions counted.”
Those backing the legalization effort tried and failed to get a measure passed in the 2024 election. Gov. Ron DeSantis sharply criticized the amendment and his then chief-of-staff James Uthmeier (now Florida attorney general) led the political committee that urged voters to turn it down. The amendment fell short of the 60% threshold needed to pass.
In early 2025, Smart & Safe renewed its push and mailed a copy of a reworked initiative to millions of voters. But instead of providing a complete text of the amendment, it listed a website address on the back of the petition form that had been approved by state officials. That website address took voters to a page on Smart & Safe website that included the entire amendment.
Byrd, however, sent Smart & Safe a “cease and desist” letter in which he questioned the legality of the forms and said they had been altered without permission. State officials also demanded the organization hand over names and addresses of those who received the forms. In early October, the Division of Elections instructed supervisors to invalidate roughly 200,000 signed forms.
Smart & Safe challenged the state’s directive to local election supervisors but after a one-day hearing last week Cooper ruled with the state.
Republican Party of Florida chair Evan Power applauded Cooper’s ruling.
“Gov. DeSantis did the right thing by enforcing the law and protecting the integrity of our ballot,” Power said. “Floridians will not be misled. If you want to change our constitution, you follow the rules — period.”
Florida’s multi-billion dollar hemp industry is in jeopardy of collapsing due to federal legislation approved by the U.S. Senate on Monday night, and both proponents and critics are only now grasping the significance of what is at stake.
As part of the “continuing resolution” to reopen the federal government, the Senate has passed a measure that, according to a Senate Appropriations Committee bill summary, “Prevents the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including Delta-8, from being sold online, in gas stations, and corner stores, while preserving CBD and industrial hemp products.”
If approved by the House of Representatives later this week and then signed by the president, the measure would go into effect in 365 days.
“Everyone in the hemp industry knew the government would eventually close or tighten the loophole, but I think many felt that there would be some form of working with the industry to effectively regulate,” says Zack Kobrin, a Fort Lauderdale attorney with the firm of Saul Ewing who works in the hemp and cannabis industry.
“The reaction from many is that they are surprised it was such a sudden and sweeping measure. I think for those that are cowboys, they will just maximize on making as much as they can until they can’t. I think for those hemp operators that were trying to work with regulators and trying to follow the rules, this will be a real blow.”
‘Big Cannabis’
Carlos Hermida, who runs two hemp shops in the Tampa Bay area, alleges that the alcohol and cannabis industries were successful in getting Congress to enact the legislation.
“It’s abundantly clear that the American Distilled Spirits Alliance, Beer Institute, Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., Wine America, and Wine Institute — Big Alcohol combined with Big Cannabis, such as Trulieve & Curaleaf — have spent ridiculous amounts of money on lobbying to put tens of thousands of small business owners like myself out of the hemp industry for their own bottom line,” he said in a text message.
“The most un-American thing about all of this is the move towards total market control by a few rather than competition. Money in politics is destroying every aspect of commerce.”
Total sales from hemp businesses in Florida run in the billions of dollars, according to a 2023 analysis from Whitney Economics. That report said the industry employs approximately 104,000 workers earning in excess of $3.6 billion in annual wages.
That’s led in part to a growing rivalry between the hemp and cannabis industries in Florida that was exposed last year, after members of the hemp industry contributed financially to groups working to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational cannabis in the state. A request for comment from Trulieve, the state’s biggest medical cannabis operator, was not returned.
When news of the proposal surfaced last month, Cornbread Hemp co-founder Jim Higdon urged Florida’s congressional delegation to defend Florida’s hemp economy.
“Florida’s hemp market supports thousands of jobs, from growers to beverage distributors,” he said in a press release on Oct. 6. “Banning hemp products would devastate that progress. We ask Florida’s congressional delegation to protect this legitimate, regulated industry that Floridians overwhelmingly support.”
Florida lawmakers passed a measure during the 2024 legislative session that would have banned the sale of Delta-8 and imposed regulations on other intoxicating hemp-derived products, a measure described by Kobrin at the time as “a massive blow to the industry.”
Anti-drug organizations in Florida are hailing the vote in the U.S. Senate.
“I’m extremely excited that they’re closing the loophole, because this has been going on since 2018 when the farm bill was first passed and left this gaping loophole where these products came in under the radar, and they’re proliferating in gas stations, smoke shops, convenience stores, and now I’m seeing in Circle K, specifically the THC beverages,” says Ellen Snelling with the Hillsborough County Anti-Drug Alliance.
“They’re everywhere, and I feel like they’re trying to normalize this hemp-THC, all because of a loophole.”
Snelling remains concerned, though, because if even the measure is signed into law by President Trump, it won’t take effect for another year.
“That’s a long time, because we’re still seeing children and adults going to the emergency room after ingesting these products, so I would like to see the state address it because even though they have some regulations in Florida, I don’t think they’re strong enough, because I’m still seeing very high-THC products in gas stations and convenience stores,” she said.
While Florida has not restricted hemp-derived THC products, Delta-8 THC has been banned in 17 states and severely restricted in seven more, according to the National Cannabis Industry Association.
The Legislature returned to Tallahassee earlier this year to once again tackle the issue. Speaker of the House Daniel Perez created a “combined workgroup” on hemp consisting of 24 members from two separate committees chaired by Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Escambia County, that convened during the first week of the 2025 legislative session.
Members concluded after meeting three times that they did not want to pass any legislation that would kill what has become a billion-dollar-plus industry in the state, but they also agreed they needed to implement more regulations on the product.
However, unlike the 2024 session, they failed to produce any final bill for consideration, as there were significant differences between the House and Senate versions.
A state bill on hemp in 2026?
Salzman weighed in on the federal legislation Tuesday.
“I’m encouraged to see the Senate include hemp-related language as this bill moves to the U.S. House,” Salzman wrote on X. “My focus has always been on commonsense safeguards that protect Americans while supporting responsible industry. This is another step in that ongoing conversation, and I look forward to continued collaboration as the process moves forward.”
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has conducted inspections of hemp retailers and manufacturers across the state this year to ensure compliance with child-protection standards for hemp products. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment on the pending federal legislation.
Last month, 38 attorneys general from both political parties sent a letter to the Senate and House appropriation chairs calling on Congress to clarify the 2018 U.S. farm bill’s definition of hemp “to ensure intoxicating THC products are taken off the market.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier was not among them.
Kentucky U.S. Republican Sen. Rand Paul filed an amendment Monday to the continuing resolution package that would have stripped the hemp language, but it failed on a 76-24 vote.
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. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
Legislation has again been filed to protect public employees who are qualified medical marijuana patients in Florida.
Broward County Democratic state Sen. Tina Polsky’s proposal (SB 136) would prohibit a public employer from taking adverse personnel action against an employee or a job applicant for their use of medical marijuana if the employee is a qualified patient.
There are exceptions if the public employer can establish that the use of cannabis is impairing the worker’s ability to perform his or her job duties or responsibilities.
The proposal also says that if the public employer does have a drug testing policy and an employee or job applicant tests positive for THC, the employer must provide the employee or applicant written notice within five days about their right to provide an explanation for or contest the positive test.
Sen. Polsky has filed similar legislation that hasn’t moved in the GOP-controlled Legislature in recent years. Some of her earlier versions encompassed all medical marijuana patients around the state, not just those who are public employees.
Medical cannabis is legal in 38 states. About half of those states have anti-discrimination policies for medical cannabis patients, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The NCSL reports that “significantly fewer states require employers to carve out accommodations for these patients.”
There are 895,469 qualified medical marijuana patients in Florida, according to the Office of Medical Marijuana Use. That’s the most in the nation.
Polsky has also filed a bill (SB 130) to prohibit courts from denying or restricting certain parental rights based solely on a parent’s status as a qualified medical marijuana patient. It would also prohibit the presumption of neglect or child endangerment based solely on a parent’s status as a qualified medical marijuana patient.
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. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
It’s the latest indication that DeSantis’ dubious war with Disney is in fact over
“At the end of this year, if Congress doesn’t do its job, we are going to see 25 million Americans have their healthcare costs go up anywhere from 50 to 300 percent,” the Democratic congressman said
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Pointing to laws allowing use of medical marijuana and hemp, a state appeals court Wednesday reversed course and said police officers can’t search vehicles only on the basis of smelling cannabis.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal’s main opinion said that for “generations, cannabis was illegal in all forms — thereby rendering its distinct odor immediately indicative of criminal activity.” But the opinion said legislative changes have “fundamentally changed its definition and regulation” and made cannabis legal to possess in multiple forms.
Citing the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, the appeals court backed away from what it described as a “plain smell doctrine” related to cannabis.
“In light of significant legislative amendments to the definition and regulation of cannabis, its mere odor can no longer establish that it is ‘immediately apparent’ that the substance is contraband,” Judge Nelly Khouzam wrote in an opinion fully joined by nine other judges. “Accordingly, the plain smell doctrine can no longer establish probable cause based solely on the odor of cannabis. Rather, we now align the Fourth Amendment analysis for cannabis with the test that applies to other suspected contraband, such that its odor is a valid factor to be considered along with all others under the totality of the circumstances.”
Three other judges wrote or joined concurring opinions, including Judge J. Andrew Atkinson, who wrote that what is “pertinent to the resolution of this case on its facts is that an officer who smells either raw cannabis or the smoke from burnt or burning cannabis has encountered an odor that is no more likely to be indicative of criminal activity than licit use of a legal substance. On this record and under the statutes as they currently read, that smell, in isolation, does not give rise to probable cause to justify a search.”
But Judge Craig Villanti, in a dissent joined by Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe, wrote that changes over the past decade to allow medical marijuana and hemp products “did not wholesale decriminalize the possession of marijuana.” Villanti pointed to safety concerns about people driving while impaired by cannabis.
“People who traverse our Florida highways are entitled to share the roads with sober and safe drivers,” Villanti wrote. “The majority interpretation of the law and wholesale erosion of well-developed, reasonable Fourth Amendment analysis will only undermine the evolved public expectation that law enforcement will continue to protect them as they motor along Florida’s highways.”
The Hillsborough County case stemmed from law-enforcement officers in 2023 stopping a car in which Darrielle Ortiz Williams was a passenger. Officers smelled cannabis and searched the car, finding bags that included cannabis.
Williams, who was on probation at the time, also was found to have a drug known as “molly” in a plastic bag in a sock. A circuit judge found that Williams had violated probation. That led to the appeal, which was considered by the full appellate court.
Wednesday’s opinion reversed course from a 2021 decision by the 2nd District that said police were still able to conduct searches based on smelling cannabis. But it put the Tampa Bay-area court in line with an opinion issued last year by the 5th District Court of Appeal.
The 2nd District also took a step known as certifying a question of “great public importance” to the Florida Supreme Court to resolve the issue.
In a twist in Wednesday’s opinion, the court declined to suppress the evidence in Williams’ case because the court said “our precedent expressly permitted the search at the time it occurred” and “law enforcement was acting in objectively reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent.”
Florida voters in 2016 passed a constitutional amendment that allowed the use of medical marijuana. Lawmakers subsequently passed legislation to put the amendment into effect and also have allowed use of other hemp products.
In his dissent, Villanti wrote that he hopes the Supreme Court will address the issue about searches but also pointed to the possibility of the Legislature getting involved.
“I am equally hopeful that the Florida Legislature is aware of the dilemma that was inadvertently caused by the widespread acceptance of hemp and legalization of medical marijuana,” he wrote. “I invite the Legislature to review this issue and to consider that its recent legislation legalizing cannabis for medical purposes has made it easier for nefarious individuals to engage in criminal activity. Because I believe this is a great injustice to the citizens of Florida, I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that we have no choice but to recede from the ‘plain smell’ doctrine.”
The main opinion was joined by Chief Judge Matthew Lucas and Judges Stevan Northcutt, Morris Silberman, Robert Morris, Anthony Black, Daniel Sleet, Susan Rothstein-Youakim, Andrea Teves Smith and Suzanne Labrit.
In addition to Atkinson, the concurring judges were Patricia Kelly and Edward LaRose.
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.
Trulieve, the state’s largest medical-marijuana company, has contributed nearly $50 million to the effort to pass a constitutional amendment to authorize recreational marijuana in Florida, according to a new campaign-finance report posted on the state Division of Elections website.
The Quincy-based company pumped $9.225 million into the Smart & Safe Florida political committee from Jan. 1 to March 31, the report shows.
The Florida Supreme Court on April 1 gave approval for the proposed constitutional amendment, Amendment 3, to appear on the November ballot. Until last month, Trulieve had largely been the sole financial supporter of the effort.
Much of the Trulieve money went toward the expensive process of collecting and verifying petition signatures to qualify for the ballot. But the new report showed a handful of the state’s other medical-marijuana operators contributed to the committee days before the Supreme Court ruling.
Verano Holdings Corp., which operates as MÜV in Florida, contributed a total of $2.225 million between March 27 and March 29. Curaleaf Inc. made two $1 million contributions — one on March 27 and another on March 31. AYR Wellness Inc. and Green Thumb Industries each contributed $500,000 on March 26, and Cresco Labs contributed $400,000 on March 22.
As of March 31, the committee had raised nearly $55 million since the launch of the campaign in 2022, and had spent $40.6 million. Florida voters in 2016 approved a constitutional amendment that broadly allowed medical marijuana.
Heirs and business partners of a Black farmer who vied for a potentially lucrative medical-marijuana license are trying to persuade an appeals court that state health officials were wrong to scrap his application because he died before the licensing process was complete.
The application of the late Moton Hopkins, a Marion County farmer and rancher, received the highest score of a dozen applicants who sought the license.
An administrative law judge in February upheld the Department of Health’s decision to reject the application because the farmer died before officials finished evaluating the submissions.
But lawyers for Hopkins’ heirs and partners on Tuesday filed a brief at the 1st District Court of Appeal seeking to overturn Administrative Law Judge Gary Early’s decision.
Hopkins was among applicants who sought a medical-marijuana license earmarked for a Black farmer who was a “recognized class member” in class-action lawsuits over lending discrimination by the federal government, known as “Pigford” cases.
State health officials began accepting applications for the license in March 2022, and in September announced they intended to grant a license to Suwannee County farmer Terry Donnell Gwinn.
All of the applicants who lost out challenged the decision, putting Gwinn’s license on hold. In this week’s brief, Hopkins’ lawyers argued, in part, that the license should go to the entity — not the individual — affiliated with the…
