Florida Supreme Court Cancels Marijuana Legalization Ballot Measure Hearing At Request Of Attorney General

The Florida Supreme Court has cancelled oral arguments and closed a case
concerning a marijuana legalization ballot initiative that was under review
at the request of the state attorney general.

Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) notified the court on Monday that he
was withdrawing his request for a legal review into the cannabis measure
because election officials determined the campaign behind it had fallen
short of the signature requirements for ballot placement. But while the
campaign urged the court to reject the notice of dismissal, contesting the
signature count, justices on Wednesday accepted the attorney general’s
motion.

“The Court accepts the Attorney General’s Notice of Voluntary Dismissal.
Oral argument is canceled and this case is hereby dismissed,” justices said.

Smart & Safe Florida has disputed the secretary of state’s signature count,
claiming the campaign submitted over 1.4 million petitions—hundreds of
thousands more than the 880,062 valid signatures required to go before
voters.

In a filing with the Supreme Court, Uthmeier said his office was
withdrawing its earlier request for a legal review in the constitutionality
of the proposed cannabis initiative because the state claims the campaign
submitted an insufficient number of signed petitions. The last count,
according to the secretary of state’s office, was 783,592 validated
signatures.

The attorney general “respectfully submits that the Court should dismiss
this case and cancel the oral argument scheduled for February 5, 2026,” the
filing said.

New material in Re: Adult Personal Use of Marijuana (dismissal). See the
docket here: https://t.co/lIHnRCafYz pic.twitter.com/ciBLRMIZiQ

— FloridaSupremeCourt (@flcourts) February 4, 2026

In its reply brief, Smart & Safe Florida said the secretary of state’s
office made a determination that the campaign didn’t satisfy requirements
for ballot placement based on a “conclusion that the Sponsor failed to meet
the requisite signature threshold in light of the invalidations that the
Sponsor is contesting.”

“Should the Sponsor prevail in those actions, up to 98,000 petitions would
be added to the total, easily surpassing the 880,062 necessary for ballot
placement,” it said. “In addition, the day before the Secretary’s
announcement, the Sponsor submitted a public records request to all 67
County Supervisors of Elections to ascertain the number of verified valid
signed petitions, as well as the number of signed petitions that should
have been verified as valid.”

“Depending on the results of that request, the Sponsor may file an action
in the coming weeks directly challenging the Secretary of State’s
determination that the Sponsor did not obtain the requisite number of
verified petition signatures,” the brief states.”The Court should deny the
Attorney General’s request for dismissal.”

“If section 16.061(4) were construed to require this Court to dismiss an
advisory-opinion case where the Secretary of State’s determination that an
initiative no longer qualifies for ballot placement is currently subject to
legal challenge, as it is here, the statute would be unconstitutional.
Nothing in the Constitution permits the Legislature to authorize the
Attorney General to divest this Court of jurisdiction through a withdrawal
of a request. As a practical matter, moreover, such a novel procedure would
confer on a Secretary of State effectively unreviewable authority to
foreclose an initiative’s placement on the ballot, even on legally invalid
grounds.”

The court should not be denied jurisdiction to adjudicate the signature
issues under legal scrutiny simply because the state determined that there
were insufficient signatures, the campaign said. And if the court
“concludes that the statute is not amenable to that construction, however,
it should hold that the statute is unconstitutional as applied here.”

“The broader context here illustrates the constitutional infirmity in
applying the statute to divest the Court of jurisdiction in these
circumstances,” it said. “Over 1.4 million Floridians have exercised their
constitutionally granted right to sign the Sponsor’s initiative petition to
provide for safe, regulated, adult-only use of marijuana.”

“Immediately dismissing advisory-opinion review here, when there are
pending outcome-determinative disputes about the Secretary’s
disqualification of tens of thousands of petitions, may leave this Court
with little or no time to issue an advisory opinion in compliance with that
constitutional deadline should the Sponsor prevail in the pending cases,”
it continued. “That would frustrate the people’s exercise of their right to
amend the Constitution by initiative under Article XI of the Constitution.”

“Affording the Secretary of State effectively unreviewable discretion to
withhold initiatives from the ballot is neither contemplated by the
Constitution nor necessary for ballot integrity. In fact, this Court has
repeatedly confirmed that it retains jurisdiction even if the Secretary of
State asserts that the February threshold is not satisfied.”

Meanwhile, the Department of State said on Sunday that 21 other initiative
campaigns also failed to turn in sufficient signatures for ballot access.

Ahead of the signature turn-in, Florida’s attorney general and several
business and anti-marijuana groups urged the state Supreme Court to block
the cannabis initiative, calling it “fatally flawed” and unconstitutional.

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 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.

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

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

One of the more recent lawsuits, filed in the Leon County circuit court,
claimed 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.

That came 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.

Last month, the state attorney general’s office opened dozens of criminal
investigations and submitted subpoenas requesting records from Smart & Safe
Florida and its contractors and subcontractors over alleged fraud related
to the petitioning effort.

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.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) campaigned heavily against an earlier version of the
legalization proposal, which received a majority of voters in 2024 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 expressed optimism that the revised version would
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.


*— Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of 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. —*

n 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, Florida lawmakers recently approved a bill to significantly
reduce the fee for military veterans to obtain medical marijuana registry
identification cards, slashing the cost to one-fifth of the current amount.

The subcommittee vote on the fee reduction bill came about a week after the
Senate Regulated Industries Committee advanced separate legislation to ban
smoking or vaping marijuana in public places. Rep. Alex Andrade (R) is
sponsoring a similar bill to ban public cannabis smoking in the House of
Representatives.

*Here’s an overview of other pending Florida marijuana bills:*

- A House lawmaker is sponsoring a bill to legalize recreational
marijuana that also aims to break up what he calls “monopolies” in the
state’s current medical cannabis program by revising the business licensing
structure.
- Another representative’s bill would protect the parental rights of
medical cannabis patients, preventing them from losing custody of their
children for using their medicine in accordance with state law.
- Other lawmakers are sponsoring legislation 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 proposals would also allow doctors to recommend cannabis
to any patient who has a condition for which they have been prescribed
opioids.
- A senator is sponsoring a bill to legalize home cultivation of
marijuana for registered medical cannabis patients in the state.

*Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel and Philip Steffan.*

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