Maine Anti-Marijuana Campaign Misses Deadline To Submit Signatures For Legalization Rollback Ballot Initiative

A Maine campaign seeking to significantly roll back the state’s marijuana
law failed to submit signatures by a deadline this week to make the
November 2026 ballot, meaning the anti-cannabis activists will need to
shift their focus to 2027 if they hope to put the issue before voters.

Amid criticism from reform advocates, industry stakeholders and certain
lawmakers over allegedly misleading signature gathering tactics, Mainers
for a Safe and Healthy Future was evidently unable to make the cut by the
February 2 turn-in deadline.

“The cannabis petitions were not returned yesterday,” Deputy Secretary of
State for Communications Jana Spaulding told Cannabis Business Times on
Tuesday. In Maine, that doesn’t mean the campaign needs to start from
scratch, however, as they can still pursue putting the proposal on next
year’s ballot.

A Maine Republican lawmaker and marijuana industry advocates last month
sounded the alarm over claims that the prohibitionist campaign was using
misleading petition tactics to get voters to sign the petition.

A video shared by Rep. David Boyer (R) featured an image of a person
seemingly collecting signatures for the ballot measure and an audio
recording where he significantly misrepresented what the cannabis proposal
would accomplish, claiming that its primary intent was to ensure product
safety with enhanced testing requirements.

In reality, the initiative would end regulated recreational marijuana sales
as approved by voters in 2016. Possession of up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis
would remain legal, but adults would no longer be able to grow plants for
personal use or buy adult-use cannabis from licensed stores.

There is a testing component to the proposed initiative as it concerns
medical marijuana, with a revised regulatory structure. But the notion that
it would improve product safety for recreational cannabis is difficult to
square given the removal of legal access to regulated products that it
contemplates.

“The prohibitionists’ petition to repeal adult-use cannabis in Maine has
relied on lies and misinformation to collect signatures,” Boyer, who led
the fight to pass cannabis legalization at the ballot about 10 years ago
when he was a staffer for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), said in a
statement to Marijuana Moment on Wednesday. “Thankfully, they did not make
the deadline for the November 2026 ballot, but that doesn’t mean they are
done.”

“I believe they will continue to their campaign of deceit and turn in the
necessary signatures for the next election,” he said. “The adult-use and
medical cannabis community must come together to defeat this failed policy,
once again.”

Stephen Dunker, co-founder of the Maine-based marijuana shop OG Cannabis,
told Marijuana Moment last month that there were “serious” concerns about
the language of the measure itself, which purports to be about
strengthening the state’s medical marijuana program, without making clear
it would also upend the adult-use market.

“Voters deserve transparency, not deceptive ballot language designed to
trick them into signing,” he said in an email.

Meanwhile, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Maine also recently
implored voters not to sign the petition to put the “really dumb” cannabis
repeal initiative on this year’s ballot.

“It’s dumb. It’s a dumb idea. Let’s focus on the things that really
matter—the things that are going to make Maine a better place,” David
Jones, a real estate executive who previously ran for governor in 2006,
said in December.

The proposal, which officials cleared for signature gathering in
December—is titled “An Act to Amend the Cannabis Legalization Act and the
Maine Medical Use of Cannabis Act.” It’s a revised version of a marijuana
initiative filed in September that was backed by a Republican state senator
and a former top staffer to then-Gov. Paul LePage (R), a staunch
prohibitionist.

Madison Carey, who was listed as the chief petitioner of the original
version of the repeal initiative and remains involved in the current
campaign, told Marijuana Moment in December that “there needs to be
regulations on marijuana,” arguing that her experience recovering from an
opioid misuse disorder speaks to the insufficiency of current law.

“My hope is to just bring awareness to the reality of the potential dangers
of not having regulations,” she said. “I think people are fed up with the
constant use—the constant [retail businesses] coming up where people can
now legally purchase marijuana.”

Of course, repealing the voter-approved law that enacted a system of
licensed adult-use sales would eliminate the current regulatory
infrastructure that’s in place, which reform advocates argue helps mitigate
the public health and safety risks associated with the illicit market.

Under the measure, the director of the Office of Cannabis Policy would face
a mandate to “promote the health and well-being of the people of the state
and advance policies that protect public health and safety, emphasizing the
health and well-being of minors, as priority considerations in performing
all duties.”

They would also have to “ensure that qualifying patients maintain access to
high-quality, effective and affordable cannabis for medical use under this
Act.”

The Department of Administrative and Financial Services would be required
to create a testing program for cannabis products, requiring dispensaries
and caregivers to submit such products to a licensed facility for a safety
assessment before they’re distributed to qualified patients.

The testing facility would need to “ensure that the cannabis or cannabis
product does not exceed the maximum level of allowable contamination for
any contaminant that is injurious to health and for which testing is
required and to ensure correct labeling.”

“The department shall adopt rules establishing a testing program pursuant
to this section, rules identifying the types of contaminants that are
injurious to health for which cannabis and cannabis products must be tested
under this chapter and rules regarding the maximum level of allowable
contamination for each contaminant,” the ballot initiative text states.

Further, regulators would need to administer a system for tracking cannabis
plants from seedings to the point of retail sale or disposal. That system
would have to “allow for cannabis plants at the stage of cultivation and
upon transfer from the stage of cultivation to another registrant to be
tracked by group.”

Activists needed to submit at least 67,682 valid voter signatures by
February 2 in order to qualify for the November ballot. If they’d
accomplished that and the measure was approved by voters, the initiative
would have taken effect beginning on January 1, 2028.


*— 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
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The Maine effort was one of three 2026 campaigns seeking to reverse course
on state cannabis laws.

In Massachusetts, for example, officials recently rejected a challenge to a ballot
initiative that seeks to significantly scale back the state’s marijuana
legalization law by repealing regulated sales.

Over in Arizona, meanwhile, a GOP congressional lawmaker recently said he’d
like to see his stateroll back its voter-approved marijuana legalization law
with an initiative that could be on the November ballot—but he acknowledged
that President Donald Trump’s federal rescheduling order could complicate
that prohibitionist push.

*Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.*

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