Marijuana Legalization

A $150 million-plus effort to allow recreational use of marijuana in Florida fizzled out Tuesday, falling short of the needed 60 percent voter approval and delivering a major victory for Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The policy would have authorized the state’s medical marijuana growers and retailers to sell to consumers.

Ron DeSantis held a rally in Naples on Tuesday, October 29, campaigning against amendments 3 and 4. His comments on Amendment 3, the legalization of recreational marijuana, call into question the honesty with which he is representing the amendment to his supporters.

Collier Commission echoes DeSantis (Not Trump) and Florida Sheriff's Association on opposition to pot amendment.

Billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin has given $12 million to an effort to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational use of marijuana in Florida. Griffin, CEO of the firm Citadel, announced the contribution Friday in an opinion piece in the Miami Herald, calling the proposed amendment “a terrible plan to create the nation’s most expansive and destructive marijuana laws.”

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, The Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country.The DEA’s proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. However, it would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.

A divided Florida Supreme Court on Monday approved placing on the November ballot a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at allowing recreational use of marijuana.Trulieve, the state’s largest medical-marijuana company, has spent more than $40 million on the effort to get the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.

Attorney General Ashley Moody is urging the Florida Supreme Court to reject a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational use of marijuana by people 21 and older, arguing a ballot summary would be “misleading to voters in several key respects.”

Backers of a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational use of marijuana have surpassed a required number of petition signatures to place the initiative on the 2024 ballot, according to the state Division of Elections.

Collier commissioners have voted to enact an ordinance that would ban the establishment or location of medical marijuana dispensing facilities in unincorporated parts of the county.