A pair of Republican and Democratic Florida senators have teamed up to promote a marijuana legalization initiative that will be on the November ballot, making a joint appearance in a new ad for the campaign as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) continues to rally against the measure, claiming it would benefit a corporate “weed cartel.”
Sen. Joe Gruters (R), the former chair of the Florida Republican Party, and Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) stood side-by-side in the ad for Smart & Safe Florida, acknowledging that while they “don’t agree on much—hardly anything” and would be each voting for their respective party’s presidential nominee, they “do agree on this: Amendment 3 is good for Florida.”
“That’s right. It legalizes marijuana for adult use, giving freedom to Floridians,” Gruters, who formally endorsed the initiative last month, said.
The measure would also provide “justice for our community,” Jones said.
The senators also noted that tax revenue from legal cannabis sales would partly go to public education and law enforcement in the state.
“Vote ‘yes’ on Amendment 3,” Jones said.
“It’s not about politics. It’s about Florida,” Gruters said.
The ad also comes amid another series of endorsements, including from the Young Republicans of Florida and the Florida Senate Democratic Caucus—another show of bipartisan unity around the reform.
While polling has also consistently demonstrated that the ballot measure enjoys majority support from Democrats and Republicans alike—and despite the fact that the 2024 GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump, has endorsed it as well—Florida’s governor has not relented in his crusade to defeat it.
“The amendment says that you have basically a big weed cartel of incumbent companies that are allowed to grow it and sell it,” DeSantis said during a press briefing on Tuesday, pointing out that the multi-state operator Trulieve has been the primary donor for the legalization campaign and arguing that the measure was drafted in a way that disproportionately benefits the company.
Watch the governor discuss the cannabis initiative, starting around 36:00 into the video below:
Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers and Gruters, the GOP state senator, also met with Trump ahead of his endorsement of Amendment 3, as well as federal rescheduling and industry banking access.
Last week, Trump said medical marijuana has been “absolutely amazing” for patients, and that the Florida legalization initiative is “going to be very good” for the state after it passes, which he expects to happen.
“You take a look at the numbers, it’s been very hard to beat it,” Trump said, referencing polling for marijuana legalization ballot measures. “So I think it’ll generally pass, but you want to do it in a safe way.”
Separately, longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone, who is also a Florida resident and supports the legalization proposal, separately told Marijuana Moment that if Trump did ultimately endorse the measure it would “guarantee victory.”
Meanwhile, following Trump’s recent announcement of support for the cannabis legalization ballot measure in Florida, the campaign for Harris started working to remind voters that while in office, Trump “took marijuana reform backwards.”
In a memo from a senior campaign spokesperson, the Harris campaign accused Trump of “brazen flip flops” on cannabis. The Democratic campaign says it’s one of the Republican former president’s “several bewildering ‘policy proposals’ that deserve real scrutiny.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is sponsoring a bill to federally legalize marijuana called the States Reform Act, separately said that while she hoped Trump would back the Biden administration’s rescheduling move, she also said part of the reason Republicans in Congress have declined to embrace marijuana policy change is because they’re “afraid of it.”
Trump also recently went after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.
Trump’s line of attack, while misleading, was nonetheless notable in the sense that the GOP presidential nominee implied that he disagrees with criminalizing people over marijuana and is moving to leverage the idea that Harris played a role in racially disproportionate mass incarceration.
—Marijuana Moment is tracking more than 1,500 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.—
Meanwhile, a Democratic congresswoman who recently said she was on the fence about whether she’d vote for the Florida legalization ballot initiative this November has officially given the measure her endorsement.
There’s been a mixed bag of feedback on Amendment 3 from members of Florida’s congressional delegation.
One pro-legalization GOP congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), recently said he intends to vote against it, strictly because he feels the reform should be enacted statutorily, rather than as a constitutional amendment that would prove more challenging to amend.
On the other hand, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, predicted earlier this year that the measure will pass.
Separately, another recent survey from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is against the cannabis initiative, found that 59 percent of likely voters in the state back Amendment 3.
A separate poll from the James Madison Institute (JMI) that was released late last month showed 64 percent of likely voters in Florida are in favor of the legalization proposal.
A pair of Republican and Democratic Florida senators have teamed up to promote a marijuana legalization initiative that will be on the November ballot, making a joint appearance in a new ad for the campaign as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) continues to rally against the measure, claiming it would benefit a corporate “weed cartel.” Sen. Read More