Florida Attorney General Asks Supreme Court To Block Marijuana Legalization Measure From Ballot

The attorney general of Florida and several business and anti-marijuana
groups are telling the state Supreme Court to block a cannabis legalization
initiative, calling it “fatally flawed” and unconstitutional as advocates
work against the clock to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

In a series of briefs submitted to the court on Friday, Attorney General
James Uthmeier (R), Drug Free America Foundation, Florida Chamber of
Commerce, Florida Legal Foundation, Associated Industries of Florida and a
former judge made similar arguments contesting the initiative from Smart
and Safe Florida.

The parties generally contend that the proposal is written in a way that’s
affirmatively misleading, runs counter to federal law prohibiting cannabis
and violates the state’s single subject rule for ballot initiatives.

The attorney general called the measure “fatally flawed,” arguing that it
“misleads voters in a way designed to garner greater approval, is flatly
invalid under the federal Constitution, and violates the single-subject
requirement. The Court should therefore strike the proposed amendment from
the ballot.”

Each of those reasons alone, the brief said, “warrants removal from the
ballot.”

The attorney general’s office last month asked the state Supreme Court to
review the constitutionality of the legalization initiative. The court
accepted the request and set a schedule for state officials and the
cannabis campaign to file briefs this month. Proponents of the measure have
until January 12 to submit response briefs, then the opposition has until
January 20 to reply.

New material in Re: Adult Personal Use of Marijuana (initial briefs). See
the docket here: https://t.co/02OMKcLXl3 pic.twitter.com/JxvNNWGyPh

— FloridaSupremeCourt (@flcourts) January 3, 2026

“The ballot summary impermissibly misleads voters about the actual effect
of the proposed amendment,” Uthmeier said, arguing that the way the
proposal is written suggests public consumption of marijuana would be
entirely prohibited, but it would actually only ban public use in certain
designated areas.

The brief says that “countless dictionaries, legal authorities, and common
sense dictate that ‘in public’ is a far broader term that covers everything
from the local grocery store, fitness center, to the shopping mall.”

“That divergence between summary and amendment misleads voters and is fatal
under this Court’s established precedent. After all, polling routinely
shows that most Americans oppose the smell of marijuana ‘in public.’ The
ballot summary would lead voters to believe that voting yes would ensure
there is no marijuana—or its smell—’in public,’ while the actual amendment
delivers no such thing. The ‘in public’ summary language would likewise
deceive Florida parents into thinking this initiative will prohibit
marijuana smoking near their children in hotels, restaurants, sports
venues, and other areas open to the general public. The initiative provides
no such protection.”

Further, the attorney general’s brief argues that the initiative “fails”
because it’s “facially invalid under the United States Constitution.”

Given that marijuana remains federally prohibited drug under the Controlled
Substances Act (CSA), “the initiative runs head long into the Supremacy
Clause, which ensures that federal law ‘shall be the supreme Law of the
Land…any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding,'” it says.

“The initiative seeks to ensure access to a robust recreational marijuana
market, including by requiring state regulators to assist in guaranteeing
the ‘availability’ of marijuana,” the brief continues. “But state law
cannot ’empower[]’ people ‘to do precisely what the federal Act forbids
them to do,’ and the initiative stands directly athwart Congress’s
objectives in enacting the CSA.”

Of course, Florida already allows patients with qualifying conditions to
access medical cannabis in contravention of federal law—albeit with unique
protections under a congressional rider that must be annually renewed
through the appropriations process.

In any case, the attorney general said the federal-state policy disconnect
“warrants removal from the ballot.”

“The Legislature added this statutory requirement to its law regulating the
initiative process, which the Florida Constitution authorized it to do,”
the brief said. “And the Supremacy Clause is as much a part of the ‘United
States Constitution’ as any other provision, so faithfully ensuring that
the proposal is not facially invalid includes preemption analysis stemming
from any validly enacted federal law, like the CSA.”

The office’s final argument is that the initiative “violates the
single-subject requirement” for Florida ballot measures, referring to the
idea that the proposal improperly touches on multiple aspects of the law,
including legalizing possession and regulating the cannabis industry.

“The constitutional text imposes a rigid requirement on the specificity of
initiatives,” Uthmeier said. “This Court has, at times, applied a more
relaxed view of what constitutes a single subject. But text, context, and
precedent confirm that ‘subject’ must be read narrowly. And under this
proper view, any matter must be inextricably intertwined to be ‘directly
connected’ under a single subject.”

“But the initiative fails either under this proper standard or under the
Court’s current oneness-of-purpose test. The proposed amendment spreads far
beyond marijuana legalization and extends to childhood advertising bans,
business licensing, and permissible marijuana business structures. These
disparate facets of the initiative muddle voter choice and propose
wide-ranging changes to Florida’s legal landscape. The single-subject
requirement—as originally and properly understood—exists to prevent this
dynamic.”

The Drug Free America Foundation, meanwhile, said in its brief that
“proponents for recreational marijuana use in Florida have attempted to
dodge the legislative process by way of constitutional amendment,” and this
“latest iteration of the marijuana ballot initiative is fatally flawed and
must be stricken from the ballot.”

It echoes the attorney general’s position that the measure is “facially
invalid” because it conflicts with federal law that “unequivocally
prohibits anyone from possessing or using marijuana for nearly every
purpose.”

“Therefore, if Florida were to pass the Proposed Amendment, it would create
a positive conflict because the use and possession of marijuana remains
federally illegal,” it said. “And under the well-established hierarchy of
law, no state constitutional amendment can surpass the dictates of federal
law and cure federally illegal activity within the state.”

The Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida Legal Foundation and Judge Frank
Shepherd filed a separate joint brief stating that the parties remain
“especially vigilant about the abuse of the citizen initiative process by
out-of-state interests that think of Florida as just another market and the
citizen initiative process as just another means of exploiting that market.”

“The initiative, titled ‘Adult Personal Use of Marijuana,’ poses several
problems,” it says. “Any one of these problems is enough to keep the
initiative off the ballot. Together they highlight its fundamental flaws.”

The Florida Chamber of Commerce has consistently opposed attempts to move
forward with adult-use legalization, even as its own polling has shown
majority support for the reform.

“First, state law can’t make legal what federal law makes illegal,” it
said. “Federal law makes illegal the acquisition, cultivation, processing,
transportation, and sale of marijuana. The proposed constitutional
amendment tries to make all this legal.”

“What’s more, the State of Florida would become complicit in the federal
crime. That’s because the state would license businesses engaged in
acquisition, cultivation, processing, transportation, and sale of the drug.
The state’s legalization and commercialization of recreational marijuana
would create a positive conflict with federal law, making compliance with
both impossible. Even if a person or business could comply with both, the
proposed amendment would frustrate federal objectives, meaning there would
be obstacle preemption.”

The brief also asserts that the scope of the proposal is too broad for a
constitutional amendment that advocates hope to be decided by voters
because it “permits higher-level changes to how laws are made, not the
enactment of specific statutory text. The latter is the legislature’s job.”

The parties repeated claims about violating the single-subject requirement
for ballot measures and the idea that the ballot summary is “misleading”
because of the public smoking provisions.

“While the initiative contains a prohibition on this conduct, it includes
no enforcement mechanisms or penalties. There isn’t even a requirement for
the legislature to create the relevant enforcement mechanisms or
penalties,” it says. “Without more, voters are left with the impression
that they don’t have to worry about marijuana smoke in public parks or
colorful gummies attractive to children. But a toothless prohibition like
this is no prohibition at all. It seems intended only to hoodwink voters.”

Associated Industries of Florida also claimed in its own brief that the
initiative is invalid because “the state-facilitated recreational marijuana
industry envisioned by the proposed amendment conflicts on its face with
the federal Controlled Substances Act,” while similarly arguing that it
violates the single-subject rule and misleads voters based on the summary
language.

The briefs were filed days after Smart and Safe Florida filed a new lawsuit
against state officials, alleging that they improperly directed the
invalidation of about 71,000 signatures as a turn-in deadline approaches.

The campaign has been fighting several legal battles this cycle to ensure
that its initiative is able to qualify for ballot placement.

The latest lawsuit, filed in the Leon County circuit court, claims
Secretary of State Cord Byrd (R) directed county election officials to
invalidate about 42,000 signatures from so-called “inactive” voters and
roughly 29,000 signatures collected by out-of-state petitioners.

This comes after another court upheld a previous decision to strike about
200,000 signatures that the state said were invalid because the petitions
didn’t include the full text of the proposed initiative. The campaign
contested the legal interpretation, but it declined to appeal the decision
based on their confidence they’d collected enough signatures to make up the
difference.

Now, with a February 1 deadline to submit 880,062 valid signatures just
about a month away, Smart & Safe Florida is signaling that the additional
invalidations could jeopardize their chances of making the ballot.
Currently, the state has validated 675,307 signatures.

Activists said in November that they’d collected more than one million
signatures to put the cannabis measure on the ballot, but it’s also challenged
officials at the state Supreme Court level over delays the certification
process, arguing that the review of the ballot content and summary should
have moving forward months ago when it reached an initial signature
threshold. The state then agreed to move forward with the processing.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) campaigned heavily against an earlier version
of the legalization proposal, which received a majority of voters last year
but not enough to meet the 60 percent threshold required to pass a
constitutional amendment. Former Attorney General Ashley Moody (R)
unsuccessfully contested the prior initiative in the courts.

In March, meanwhile, two Democratic members of Congress representing
Florida asked the federal government to investigate what they described as
“potentially unlawful diversion” of millions in state Medicaid funds via a
group with ties to DeSantis. The money was used to fight against a citizen
ballot initiative, vehemently opposed by the governor, that would have
legalized marijuana for adults.

The lawmakers’ letter followed allegations that a $10 million donation from
a state legal settlement was improperly made to the Hope Florida
Foundation, which later sent the money to two political nonprofits, which
in turn sent $8.5 million to a campaign opposing Amendment 3.

The governor said last February that the newest marijuana legalization
measure is in “big time trouble” with the state Supreme Court, predicting
it would be blocked from going before voters this year.

“There’s a lot of different perspectives on on marijuana,” DeSantis said.
“It should not be in our Constitution. If you feel strongly about it, you
have elections for the legislature. Go back candidates that you believe
will be able to deliver what your vision is on that.”

“But when you put these things in the Constitution—and I think, I mean, the
way they wrote, there’s all kinds of things going on in here. I think it’s
going to have big time trouble getting through the Florida Supreme Court,”
he said.

The latest initiative was filed with the secretary of state’s office just
months after the initial version failed during the November 2024
election—despite an endorsement from President Donald Trump.

Smart & Safe Florida is hoping the revised version will succeed in 2026.
The campaign—which in the last election cycle received tens of millions of
dollars from cannabis industry stakeholders, principally the multi-state
operator Trulieve—incorporated certain changes into the new version that
seem responsive to criticism opponents raised during the 2024 push.

For example, it now specifically states that the “smoking and vaping of
marijuana in any public place is prohibited.”Another section asserts that
the legislature would need to approve rules dealing with the “regulation of
the time, place, and manner of the public consumption of marijuana.”

In 2023, the governor accurately predicted that the 2024 cannabis measure
from the campaign would survive a legal challenge from the state attorney
general. It’s not entirely clear why he feels this version would face a
different outcome.

While there’s uncertainty around how the state’s highest court will
navigate the measure, a poll released last February showed overwhelming
bipartisan voter support for the reform—with 67 percent of Florida voters
backing legalization, including 82 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of
independents and 55 percent of Republicans.


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In the background, a recent poll from a Trump-affiliated research firm
found that nearly 9 in 10 Florida voters say they should have the right to
decide to legalize marijuana in the state.

Meanwhile, a pro-legalization GOP state lawmaker recently filed a bill to
amend state law to codify that the public use of marijuana is prohibited.

Rep. Alex Andrade (R), the sponsor, said last year that embracing cannabis
reform is a way for the Republican party to secure more votes from young
people.

Separately, Florida medical marijuana officials are actively revoking the
registrations of patients and caregivers with drug-related criminal records.
The policy is part of broad budget legislation signed into law last year by
DeSantis. The provisions in question direct the state Department of Health
(DOH) to cancel registrations of medical marijuana patients and caregivers if
they’re convicted of—or plead guilty or no contest to—criminal drug charges.

Meanwhile, last month, a Florida Republican senator filed a bill to expand
the state’s medical marijuana program, in part by increasing supply limits
for patients and waiving registration fees for honorably discharged
military veterans.

The post Florida Attorney General Asks Supreme Court To Block Marijuana
Legalization Measure From Ballot appeared first on Marijuana Moment.