When the Florida Supreme Court in April approved a measure for the November statewide ballot that would legalize recreational marijuana use, the stage was set for a monumental battle between those who think legalization is long overdue and those who oppose it on constitutional, health, safety or other grounds.
If Amendment 3 on the Florida ballot passes in November with a 60% supermajority of the vote as required by state law, it will make recreational marijuana use legal for adults age 21 and older in a state where medical marijuana use has been legal since 2016. The law would go into effect six months after the election, if approved, and “does not change, or immunize violations of, federal law,” according to the Amendment 3 ballot summary language; marijuana is still a Schedule 1 substance at the federal level.
The economic benefits for the state could be significant, with estimates of between $195.6 and $431.3 million annually in expected sales tax collections based on other states’ experiences, according to the nonpartisan Florida Financial Impact Estimating Conference.
And in April, Headset—a data company focusing on marijuana—projected in a blog post that Florida “could see $4.9 billion to $6.1 billion in sales during the first year of implementation” if legalization passes. Headset noted that with a “robust medical marijuana program already in place” generating $2 billion in annual sales, “the Sunshine State is poised to become one of the largest and most lucrative cannabis markets in the United States.”
Florida would join the ranks of 24 other states and the District of Columbia that have legalized recreational marijuana for adults, and the 25 companies currently licensed by the state to grow and sell marijuana for medical use would be able to do the same for recreational marijuana. The law would allow adults over 21 to possess up to 3 ounces (approximately 85 grams).
Gov. Ron DeSantis has remained firmly opposed to the measure that would legalize recreational use, and has cited concerns ranging from making access too easy for school kids to the smell of marijuana permeating public places. However, polls available as this issue went to press showed support topping the required 60%.
Proponents are spending big—and anticipating big returns
As of Aug. 30, Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee organizing the campaign for passage of Amendment 3, has raised more than $90 million, with the majority of that—almost $83 million—coming from Trulieve, the largest medical marijuana company in Florida and the fourth largest in the country. Headset estimated in April’s blog post that “Trulieve is projected to generate a staggering $1.69 billion in total sales during the first year of adult-use legalization.”
Trulieve spokesman Steve Vancore said he could not comment on projected earnings since Trulieve is a publicly traded company, but said he thinks the estimate of economic impact for the state may be low because it does not include revenue generated by individual jobs and the decreased cost to the criminal justice system.
“Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, there are 1,000 new jobs and each of those employees will ultimately derive an income and pay taxes; it does not include that,” Vancore says. “So, I would say that $400 million is a floor. Because the other thing they did not contemplate was the decreased cost to the criminal justice system, whether that’s police officers pulling somebody over, state attorneys having to evaluate cases, judges having to review. Even if somebody doesn’t end up going to jail for possession, the system still has to work them through from the cop at the side of the car door or at someone’s home through the state attorney’s office reevaluating or reviewing it, to pretrial release to the judicial, the whole thing that was not included in their estimate.”
What about concerns raised by opponents—including DeSantis—regarding marijuana use in public places and ease of access by nonadults? And what does he envision marijuana use looking like in Florida in five years if Amendment 3 passes?
“Here’s what it won’t look like,” Vancore says. “You won’t see smoking in schools. You won’t see smoking in playgrounds. You won’t see smoking in restaurants. You won’t see that because the Legislature can—and should—enact the same laws that we have for tobacco smoke, where people can smoke. And remember, this is only adults, and it’s limited possession amounts. … You won’t see some of the threats that have been out there because the amendment itself and the Florida Constitution give clear authority to the Legislature to set what’s called time, place and manner [of use].”
Morgan Hill, spokesperson for Smart & Safe Florida, said the true benefits of legal marijuana are about safety, transparency and decriminalization.
“When you remove the illicit market or the need to purchase marijuana from the illicit market from the equation, we are looking at a much safer Florida,” Hill says. “In states that have legalized marijuana, crime has gone down. You’re not seeing people purchase recreational marijuana on the illicit market any longer. There are reports from the federal government about how legalization has minimized cartel profits. And I think when we do that, we’re also making products that are safer for consumers more accessible. The state of Florida, for the medical program especially, has been great about making sure that those products are very safe and very regulated. You cannot have packaging or products that might be attractive to children. It’s a very strict infrastructure, and we expect that to be the case, too, if and when recreational is passed.”
Opponents fear effects on mental health, business
National anti-legalization organizations such as Smart Approaches to Marijuana, or SAM, which was co-founded by former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy, have been watching the efforts in Florida closely.
Will Jones, director of community engagement and outreach at SAM, said that the organization’s biggest concern with possible legalization in Florida is the reported influence of marijuana use on mental health.
“Our concern is that we would see a continued increase of the public health consequences that we’ve seen across the country in states that have legalized,” Jones says. “[We’ve seen] increased youth use and increased mental health problems: The No. 1 intoxicant now for youth suicides in Colorado is marijuana. Prior to legalization it was alcohol.”
Jones said another concern involves how recreational marijuana would be marketed.
“The other thing that’s particularly important to me and touches on why I got involved with this issue in the first place is the proliferation of advertisements and the location of marijuana stores in disadvantaged communities,” he says. “We’ve seen, for example, in Denver there’s one marijuana business or shop for every 47 residents in minority communities there, which kind of follows in that pattern of over-saturation, over-advertisement—predatory advertising, really—for minority communities that we see with tobacco and alcohol.”
Jones said that even though poll numbers show increasing support, SAM plans to continue pushing back on the measure.
“We’re going to continue to raise the alarm and share the stories of people who have been impacted by this,” Jones says. “And we’re hoping that we don’t have another kind of public health disaster like we did with Big Tobacco. We knew the science; we knew the cost of it. There was a well-funded industry that really kind of pulled the wool over legislators’ eyes and over the country’s [eyes] for a while. We’re still dealing with the results from that, and we’re hoping to prevent that with marijuana.”
On the business front, the Florida Chamber of Commerce has been vocal in its opposition to the measure, arguing that it did not belong in the state’s constitution.
Mark Wilson, president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, said the organization’s approach to constitutional amendments is: “If it can be done by the Legislature, then we will generally oppose it going in the state constitution.
“In other words, if this looks like an end run around our governor, the cabinet, the state Legislature—the very people we elect to set policy—then we will almost always oppose it from going in the Constitution, even if it’s something that we like, we would still oppose it. … That’s why we engage when things like drugs are trying to go around the Legislature and go directly through. And when you have one company who’s put over $55 million into trying to make Florida the biggest market in the world for them, that’s the definition of going around the legislative process.” (As of press time, that amount had climbed to almost $83 million.)
In terms of what he is hearing from Chamber members, Wilson said some are concerned about what legalization could mean in terms of workplace safety.
“If you’re in the construction industry, if you are in the transportation industry, or if you think of our military and the defense industry we have in Florida—it’s just a lose-lose for Florida,” Wilson says. “It goes well beyond the fact that it’s just not a constitutional issue.”
Read the article HERE.