Voters in 5 States Will Decide Whether To Legalize Marijuana or Psychedelics Next Week
Next week Florida could become the 25th state to legalize recreational marijuana, which would be a big deal given the state’s large population, its political demographics, and the 60 percent threshold required for voters to approve legalization via a constitutional amendment. Voters in two much less populous states, North Dakota and South Dakota, will consider similar marijuana initiatives, while Nebraska voters will have a chance to legalize medical use of cannabis. And in Massachusetts, where voters approved recreational marijuana legalization in 2016, they will decide whether to decriminalize noncommercial production and possession of five psychedelics derived from plants or mushrooms.
These ballot initiatives reflect both the ongoing collapse of marijuana prohibition, which 38 states and the District of Columbia have abandoned by authorizing medical or recreational use, and the expansion of pharmacological freedom to include additional psychoactive substances. Their fate could signal the extent to which Americans are questioning the assumptions underlying the war on drugs, which seeks to regulate our bodies and minds by preventing us from consuming politically disfavored intoxicants.
Marijuana in Florida
Amendment 3, the Florida initiative, would allow adults 21 or older to possess up to three ounces of marijuana. It would not legalize home cultivation, and initially the only authorized sources of recreational cannabis would be the state’s existing medical marijuana dispensaries—a protectionist provision that benefits entrenched cannabis interests at the expense of consumers and potential competitors.
Passage of the measure nevertheless would be a clear improvement, especially because the state would no longer treat recreational consumers as criminals. Under current law, possessing 20 grams or less is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum $1,000 fine and/or up to a year in jail. Possessing more than that amount is a felony punishable by a maximum $5,000 fine and/or up to five years in prison. Last year, police in Florida reported 3,394 arrests for marijuana possession, up from 2,349 in 2022.
Florida voters approved medical marijuana by a wide margin in 2016, when 71 percent of them said yes to Amendment 2. Two polls conducted this month put support for recreational legalization at 60 percent and 66 percent, respectively. Those results suggest the outcome will be close, especially given the polls’ margins of error (plus or minus about three percentage points in both cases).
Amendment 3’s opponents include Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Attorney General Ashley Moody (R), Sen. Rick Scott (R–Fla.), and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.). DeSantis, who calls the initiative “very, very extreme,” avers that it will fail once voters realize how “radical” it is. His chief complaint is that Amendment 3 imposes “no time, place and manner restrictions,” meaning that “it’s basically a license to have [marijuana] anywhere you want.” The result, he warns, is that Florida cities “will start to smell like marijuana.”
The initiative’s most prominent supporter is Republican presidential nominee (and Florida resident) Donald Trump, who expresses similar concerns about pot odor but notes that state legislators can address that issue by “prohibit[ing] the use of [marijuana] in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities.” Unlike DeSantis, Trump emphasizes the unjust consequences of Florida’s current marijuana laws.
“Someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform, in August. “We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of [marijuana] on them.” He reiterated that point in September. “I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” he said. “We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults [to a] safe, tested product.”
It’s a measure of how far the marijuana policy debate has progressed that a Republican presidential candidate is making these points about the benefits of legalization, while a Republican governor’s main objection is that he does not like the smell generated by pot smoking. According to Gallup, 70 percent of Americans—including 87 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of independents, and 55 percent of Republicans—think marijuana should be legal. So Trump is hardly going out on a limb by endorsing legalization in Florida.
If Amendment 3’s fate came down to a popularity contest between DeSantis and Trump, the governor might have an edge. During hi
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