Nearly Half Of Massachusetts Voters Who Signed Anti-Marijuana Initiative Petitions Feel Misled By Campaign Workers, Poll Finds

Nearly half of Massachusetts voters who signed a petition to put a
marijuana legalization rollback initiative on the ballot say they were
misled by the anti-cannabis campaign’s signature collectors, according to a
new poll.

The survey involved more than 2,300 residents who signed the petition for
the measure backed by the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts. It found
that 1,163 voters said they would not have supported its ballot placement
had they known it would repeal key parts of the state’s cannabis law
allowing commercial sales.

Massachusetts officials are already reviewing complaints about allegedly
deceptive signature gathering tactics for the initiative, which the
Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Elections Division certified for the ballot
last month after the campaign turned in a sufficient number of petitions.

This latest poll, spearheaded by the pro-legalization Committee to Protect
Cannabis Regulation, adds to suspicions that petitioners working on behalf
of the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts were either deliberately
misleading voters or failing to disclose the initiative’s intent.

It showed that numerous voters were under the impression that the
initiative petition they signed was meant to tackle non-marijuana issues
such as public education, mitigating the fentanyl crisis and expanding
housing opportunities, for example.

Of the respondents, 601 said they meant to sign the petition in order to
put marijuana sales repeal on the ballot, while another 153 didn’t know
they were signing an anti-cannabis measure but would have done so anyways
had they known that was its intent.

The coalition has denied any wrongdoing in the signature collection process
and waved off the survey results.

“We never intended or encouraged or in any way made signature gatherers
feel like they should lie about what they were getting signed,” Wendy
Wakeman, a spokesperson for the coalition, told The Boston Globe. “You’ve
got crybabies who are making millions of dollars off of this marijuana
business who are complaining that they’re not being treated fairly. And in
fact, they are.”

The campaign’s counsel, Patrick Strawbridge, similarly accused the
pro-cannabis committee behind the poll of relying on “anonymous survey
data” to produce “misleading” results.

“Even if one pretended that the survey contacted actual signers … the
number of individuals who claim they were misled or were not told what they
were signing still falls well short of the number required to disqualify
the petition,” Strawbridge said.

The survey was released after the state Ballot Law Commission received a
request to dismiss a case challenging the anti-marijuana campaign’s
signature gathering tactics. That body will soon be issuing a ruling on the
complaint, as both parties have mutually agreed to expedite the process by
waving their right to hold a hearing that was originally scheduled for last
Friday.

The state last month certified 78,301 signatures for the petition, titled
“An Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy.”

The initiative would still let adults 21 and older possess and gift up to
an ounce of cannabis, but it would repeal provisions of the voter-approved
legalization law allowing for commercial sales and home cultivation by
adults. The medical cannabis program would remain intact under the measure.

An association of state marijuana businesses had separately urged voters to
report to local officials if they observe any instances of “fraudulent
message” or other deceitful petitioning tactics.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s (D) office—which cleared
the campaign for signature gathering in September—has stressed to voters
the importance of reading their summary, which is required to go at the top
of the signature form, before signing any petitions.

The Massachusetts legislature received the initiative for consideration
earlier this month when the 2026 session kicked off. Unless it’s
invalidated, lawmakers have until May 5 to act on the proposal. If they
choose not to enact it legislatively, the campaign would need to go through
another round of petitioning and get at least 12,429 certified signatures
by July 1 to make the November ballot.

Meanwhile, the head of Massachusetts’s marijuana regulatory agency recently
suggested that the measure to effectively recriminalize recreational
cannabis sales could imperil tax revenue that’s being used to support
substance misuse treatment efforts and other public programs.

To that point, Massachusetts reached a marijuana sales milestone in 2025—with
$1.65 billion in adult-use sales for the year, bringing the state’s total
legal cannabis purchases to over $10 billion since the recreational market
launched.

Whether the cannabis measures make the cut is yet to be seen. Voters
approved legalization at the ballot in 2016, with sales launching two years
later. And the past decade has seen the market evolve and expand. As of
August, Massachusetts officials reported more than $8 billion in adult-use
marijuana sales.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts lawmakers recently assembled a bicameral
conference committee to reach a deal on a bill that would double the legal
marijuana possession limit for adults and revise the regulatory framework
for the state’s adult-use cannabis market.

Last month, state regulators also finalized rules for marijuana social
consumption loungues.


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policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon
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The state Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) recently launched an online
platform aimed at helping people find jobs, workplace training and
networking opportunities in the state’s legal cannabis industry.

State lawmakers have also been considering setting tighter restrictions on
intoxicating hemp-derived products and a plan to allow individual entities
to control a larger number of cannabis establishments.

Also in Massachusetts, legislators who were working on a state budget
butted heads with CCC officials, who’ve said they can’t make critical
technology improvements without more money from the legislature.

Massachusetts lawmakers additionally approved a bill to establish a pilot
program for the regulated therapeutic use of psychedelics. And two
committees have separately held hearings to discuss additional
psilocybin-related measures.

*Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.*

The post Nearly Half Of Massachusetts Voters Who Signed Anti-Marijuana
Initiative Petitions Feel Misled By Campaign Workers, Poll Finds appeared
first on Marijuana Moment.