Opponents of Amendment 3, the ballot measure in Florida that would legalize marijuana for adults, have hired a number of right-wing influencers—including former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, actor Kevin Sorbo and affiliates of the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA—to post critically on social media about the policy proposal, claiming, for example, that it would hand control of the cannabis market to “greedy” corporate actors and that the smell of marijuana would be “EVERYWHERE.”
Using the hashtag #NoOn3Partner, the paid commentators say the proposal would in fact limit the rights of Floridians by creating a large, for-profit marijuana industry controlled by a small number of corporate actors. They’ve also claimed that legal cannabis companies would advertise directly to target children and that “weed literally makes you dumber.”
Many of the claims have already been flatly refuted by the campaign behind the amendment, Smart & Safe Florida.
In one of the new #NoOn3Partner posts, Sorbo begins: “Amendment 3 wants to legalize weed. Sounds great, right? There’s just one problem. Amendment 3 isn’t just about legalizing recreational marijuana. It’s about a big corporation trying to monopolize the market, making millions, while Floridians are left to deal with the fallout.”
“Get this,” the former Hercules actor continues, “they’re banning homegrown marijuana. Why? Well so they can force everyone to buy from them. How’s that fair?”
Learn more at https://t.co/TSnWC2TCsZ#VoteNoOn3 #noon3partner
— Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) October 26, 2024
For its part, the yes campaign—which is funded mostly by the cannabis company Trulieve with smaller contributions from a handful of other marijuana firms—has argued that including home cultivation in the initiative would have risked running afoul of Florida’s election laws for ballot measures. It’s noted that home cultivation of cannabis is already illegal in the state, a law the legalization proposal would not change.
In another #NoOn3Partner post, lawyer Jenna Ellis—an attorney for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign and who pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge of aiding and abetting false statements and later had her Colorado law license suspended—said of the legalization campaign: “Big corporate interests are trying to take advantage of voters who think they’re voting for more rights, but really you’re giving up your right to have your representatives actually represent you.”
Ellis’s contention is that citizen-led constitutional amendments like Amendment 3 “are not legislation” that could later be adjusted by state lawmakers.
“They can’t be fine-tuned, changed or tweaked by the state legislature,” she said, oversimplifying the state’s constitutional amendment process, which does indeed allow the legislature to propose changes. “This is a one-and-done thing.”
I’ve seen a LOT of people ask on Amendment 3, 𝘴𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵? If you don’t want to smoke marijuana, just don’t.
𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆’𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝗽.
Learn more at https://t.co/scb7BJ5ooy #VoteNoOn3 #NoOn3Partner… pic.twitter.com/lAz99MJa07
— Jenna Ellis (@realJennaEllis) October 25, 2024
Notably, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved medical marijuana legalization as a constitutional amendment in 2016. The legislature later helped to facilitate its implementation and has continued to build upon the reform, but it was added to the Constitution via voters after years of inaction by lawmakers, as advocates expect will similarly be the case with adult-use legalization.
Perhaps the harshest—and potentially the most misleading—criticism of Amendment 3 came from Turning Point USA contributor Graham Allen, who hosts the conservative podcast Dear America. Allen came out hard against the proposal, alleging: “It’s all about monopolizing the land, buying it up and pushing out small businesses and literally kicking you out of where you live so they can grow more weed.”
“Weed heads, don’t rejoice just yet. Calm down, Cheech and Chong,” he said. “Amendment 3 is a poison pill. It makes you think it’s one thing, but it’s actually another way to create another monopolized industry known as Big Weed.”
The podcaster also claimed “it’s a proven fact that weed literally makes you dumber by dropping your IQ eight to 10 points” and that legalization has increased youth cannabis use in Colorado and California.
“Don’t worry about your kids getting a good education,” Allen said. “They’re just going to want to smoke weed at the end of the day.”
In fact, a recent state-run survey of Colorado youth show that rates of underage marijuana use in Colorado declined slightly in 2023, remaining significantly lower than before the state legalized the drug for adults. And contrary to Allen’s claims about IQ points—which then-President Trump also asserted in a secret recording in 2020—the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) has said the results of two longitudinal studies “did not support a causal relationship between marijuana use and IQ loss.”
True Patriots Are ANTI Big Government, ANTI Big Tech, and ANTI Big Pharma…..We Must Also Be ANTI Big Weed!!! Florida Vote NO On Amendment 3 Nov 5th!! Learn more at https://t.co/i466Lp4CWL#Sponsored #VoteNoOn3 #NoOn3Partner pic.twitter.com/QPIn9ZnVWM
— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) October 25, 2024
Another Turning Point contributor, pundit Rob Smith, warned of “the constant smell of weed smoke all the time” if the measure passes and said that he’s voting against Amendment 3 “because I have seen the disaster that legalized marijuana has brought” to other jurisdictions.
“I personally believe that no on Amendment 3 is the right choice for Florida—to keep Florida safe, to keep Florida clean, to keep Florida free of all of all of the negative aspects that marijuana legalization has brought to cities and states across this great country,” Smith said.
FLORIDIANS: On November 5th, Vote NO:
NO to the smell of weed smoke EVERYWHERE
NO to the normalization of marijuana culture. Vote NO on Amendment 3 in Florida.
Learn more at https://t.co/7GrDrJ3RZ5 #Sponsored #VoteNoOn3 #NoOn3Partner pic.twitter.com/MDoucLDnLj
— Rob Smith (@robsmithonline) October 25, 2024
The Florida legalization campaign has sharply divided leaders within the Republican party, including former President Donald Trump—who has said he’ll vote for Amendment 3—and state Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is helping lead the charge against it.
Separately, a GOP congressman who was previously arrested over marijuana says he will be voting against the measure. While Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) said last month that he was undecided on marijuana legalization, the congressman has now affirmed he will be a “no” vote on the initiative.
“I’m opposed to it. I think if you’re going to do something like this, this is something that the legislature should weigh in on, similar to what happened with medical marijuana about a decade ago,” Donalds said. “It should not go into the Constitution.”
When asked about the issue last month—and specifically former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the cannabis measure, Amendment 3, Donalds said he doesn’t believe voters are viewing marijuana reform through a “partisan lens.”
Meanwhile, bipartisan Florida senators are hitting back at the governor over the use of taxpayer dollars to fund anti-marijuana ads ahead of the legalization vote—with one Republican member saying state agencies “owe an explanation” if reports are true that millions were diverted from an opioid-related settlement account to promote the cannabis “propaganda.”
Ads from multiple state agencies—including the Departments of Transportation, Education, Health and Children & Families—have aired in recent weeks. The one that a Democratic senator sued over came from the transportation department, which asserted that “DUI crashes increase in states with legalized marijuana, putting everyone at risk.” That was dismissed by a state circuit court, however.
It’s unclear whether any of the taxpayer dollars are funding the #NoOn3Partner ads.
Ellis, in an exchange on social media, defended accepting money for coming out against Amendment 3.
“No one is saying a sponsorship is wrong, but HIDING it is,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I put the hashtag sponsored to disclose that I partnered with Vote No on 3 to help defeat it because it’s bad for Florida.”
“Thanks for showing how ethical I am,” added Ellis, who has been indicted in multiple states for her role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
No one is saying a sponsorship is wrong, but HIDING it is.
I put the hashtag sponsored to disclose that I partnered with Vote No on 3 to help defeat it because it’s bad for Florida. Unlike Jake, I’m not hiding anything. Why won’t he disclose??
Thanks for showing how ethical I…
— Jenna Ellis (@realJennaEllis) October 27, 2024
Separately, the state health department and surgeon general have been promoting new warnings about the potential impact of cannabis on youth.
A political committee opposing the legalization measure has received a half-million-dollar contribution from an organization that Elon Musk reportedly used to quietly support DeSantis’s before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. At the same time, the pro-legalization campaign has officially exceeded $100 million in total contributions.
The main corporate backer of the legalization initiative, the multi-state cannabis operator Trulieve, has separately filed a defamation suit against the state’s Republican Party, alleging it’s knowingly deceived voters about the proposed constitutional change known as Amendment 3.
Outside the presidential race, there’s been a mix of support and opposition for the Florida legalization amendment on both sides of the partisan spectrum.
For example, the former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under then-President Bill Clinton recently urged Florida voters to reject the marijuana legalization initiative, arguing that it would create a “new addiction-for-profit industry” in the state.
Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party and a former state agriculture commissioner, recently endorsed Amendment 3. And the chair also laid out a framework for regulating cannabis that she thinks the legislature should enact if voters do approve the reform. That involves automatic expungements for prior marijuana convictions, taking steps to mitigate the risk of monopolization in the industry and directing tax revenue to Black communities and education.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), for his part, has said he intends to vote against it, strictly because he feels the reform should be enacted statutorily, rather than as a constitutional amendment that would prove more challenging to amend.
On the other hand, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, predicted earlier this year that the measure will pass.
While polling has also consistently demonstrated that the ballot measure enjoys majority support from Democrats and Republicans alike—and despite the fact that Trump has endorsed it as well—Florida’s governor has not relented in his crusade to defeat it.
Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers and Gruters, the GOP state senator, also met with Trump ahead of his endorsement of Amendment 3, as well as federal rescheduling and industry banking access.
Meanwhile, another recent survey from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is against the cannabis initiative, found that 59 percent of likely voters in the state back Amendment 3.
A separate poll from the James Madison Institute (JMI) showed 64 percent of likely voters in Florida are in favor of the legalization proposal.
Smart & Safe Florida also rolled out another series of new ads last month—including one calling out the hypocrisy of criminalizing cannabis while alcohol is legally available and another featuring a county sheriff making the case for ending marijuana prohibition.
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