A Florida campaign working to put a marijuana legalization initiative on the 2026 ballot has filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court, alleging that officials are violating election laws by stalling a required review process for the measure without justification.
Smart & Safe Florida filed a petition for writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing that the secretary of state has failed to comply with a statutory mandate to “immediately submit” a notice to the attorney general after receiving sufficient signatures to trigger a fiscal and legal review.
With 662,543 signatures verified by the secretary of state’s office so far, that’s more than triple the 220,016 required to prompt the review. The campaign reached that initial threshold over the summer and notified state officials, but it says it received no response.
“It is nonsensical, and contrary to the express constitutional and statutory mandates, to allow the Secretary [of State] and Director [of the Division of Elections] to indefinitely refuse to issue the Section 15.21 Letter and frustrate the constitutional order,” the filing says, referring to the notification the secretary of state is supposed to transmit to the attorney general when the signature threshold is reached.
Attorneys for the campaign also noted that Smart & Safe Florida is involved in other litigation related to allegations that the state is taking “unlawful” steps to force the invalidation of about 200,000 voter signatures it has submitted. Officials claim the signatures are void because the petitions voters signed didn’t include the full text of the initiative.
“In that light, perhaps the Respondents speculate that the Secretary’s Directive might ultimately result in the invalidation of a sufficient number of Petitions such that the measure falls below the threshold for issuance of the Section 15.21 Letter,” the Supreme Court filing says. “A dubious presumption at best given that Smart & Safe has gathered more than three times the number of verified valid petitions required statewide and nearly double the required number of congressional districts.”
“Regardless, such speculation as to the Respondents’ motive is of no moment here because the law is clear that Smart & Safe is entitled to issuance of, and Respondents are under the mandatory ministerial legal duty to issue, the Section 15.21 Letter, because the statutory requirements have been met,” it states.
“The Secretary and Director appear to look further behind the petitions verified as valid and reported by the county supervisors (and as reflected on the Division’s website). Respondents appear to be withholding the Section 15.21 Letter on the hopes that the county supervisors’ compliance with the Secretary’s Directive might result in the Petition falling below the statutory threshold. There is no source of law that grants Respondents this authority.”
What the lawsuit aims to accomplish is to have the court “compel Florida’s Secretary of State to follow Florida law and perform his mandatory legal duty to advance the ballot initiative for Supreme Court review as required by the Florida Constitution,” Smart & Safe Florida said in a statement.
“Florida law clearly and unequivocally states that once a statewide ballot initiative has gathered more than 25 percent of the required number of signatures, the Secretary of State must begin the process of Supreme Court review and transmit the language to the State Attorney General,” it said. “For reasons unknown, this has not happened, and we are asking the court to intervene and compel the Secretary to simply follow longstanding Florida law as the Smart & Safe Florida has far surpassed that threshold last summer.”
With respect to the other pending litigation on the state’s effort to invalidate about 200,000 signatures that have already been collected, the secretary’s office initially sent a cease-and-desist letter to Smart & Safe Florida in March, advising the campaign about its interpretation of the rules around including the full text of the proposed initiative on its signature petitions.
This is the campaign’s second run at the ballot. They successfully secured ballot placement for a 2024 version of the initiative–and a majority did vote to pass it, but not enough to meet the state’s steep 60 percent threshold to approve a constitutional amendment.
In the background of this lawsuit, a federal judge in August delivered a win to Smart & Safe Florida—granting “complete relief” from provisions of a law Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed to impose other serious restrictions on signature gathering.
While the law DeSantis signed in May wasn’t directly targeted at the cannabis initiative, there’s been concern among supporters that it could jeopardize an already complex and costly process to collect enough signatures to make the ballot. That’s because it would block non-residents and non-citizens from collecting signatures for ballot measures.
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 in February that the newest marijuana legalization measure is in “big time trouble” with the state Supreme Court, predicting it will be blocked from going before voters next 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.”
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Last year, 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 in 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.
However, the results conflict with another recent poll from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, a proactive opponent of legalization, that found majority support for the reform among likely voter (53 percent) but not enough to be enacted under the 60 percent requirement.
Another poll of Florida Republican voters showed just 40 percent of that demographic said they’d vote in favor of the legalization proposal.
Separately, a Florida GOP senator claimed recently that the legalization campaign “tricked” Trump into supporting the 2024 measure by misleading him and the general public about key provisions.
Ahead of the election, Trump said last September that he felt Amendment 3 was “going to be very good” for the state.
Before making the comments, Trump met with the CEO of Trulieve, Kim Rivers, as well as with a GOP state senator who is in favor of the reform.
Meanwhile, 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 earlier this 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.
Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel and Philip Steffan.
