Most Massachusetts voters are not planning to support an initiative on the November ballot to roll back the state’s marijuana legalization law, according to two new polls—results that come as the editorial board of the state’s largest newspaper is also opposing the measure.
A survey from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and WCVB-TV that was released on Monday found that the anti-cannabis proposal has support from just 31 percent of voters, including 16 percent who say they will definitely vote yes and 15 percent who say they will probably vote yes. That’s compared to 47 percent who say they will definitely vote no and 14 percent who say they will probably vote no.
The marijuana legalization rollback initiative has less support in the poll than any of the eight other measures that will appear on next month’s ballot.
“Supporters of repealing legal marijuana sales face a steep uphill climb,” Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, said. “A decade after legalization, Massachusetts voters show little appetite for going back, as 61% say they would vote no on repealing recreational marijuana sales, and 47% say they would definitely vote no.”
“Only 31% of voters support repeal,” he said. “Support for repeal is strongest among Republicans (44%) and conservatives (46%), but it falls well short of a majority in every major group we surveyed, including voters who don’t use marijuana (41%).”
A separate survey released on Tuesday by Suffolk University and The Boston Globe shows that 71 percent of voters oppose Question 8—which would repeal laws allowing the regulated commercial sales of recreational cannabis and home cultivation while maintaining legal possession and continuing the medical marijuana system.
Just 21 percent of voters in the poll say they plan to support the anti-cannabis ballot initiative.
As is the case in the UMass/WCVB survey, no demographic group in the Suffolk/Globe poll shows majority support for Question 8.
The Suffolk/Globe poll is based on interviews of 500 general election voters from October 14-17 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points, while the UMass Amherst/WCVB survey involved interviews with 852 registered voters from October 5 –12 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.2 percentage points.
Meanwhile, The Boston Globe editorial board on Tuesday published a piece urging voters to reject the anti-cannabis ballot measure.
“To be clear, voting to maintain legal marijuana sales is not the same as encouraging marijuana use or denying its harms,” the board said. “But the question before voters is not whether marijuana can harm one’s health—it can, just as tobacco and alcohol can. The question is whether allowing sales in a store, with requirements around testing and labeling, is better than returning to the prior system, where people bought marijuana on the black market.”
The board said that “prohibition doesn’t work” and that it is safer for people to buy cannabis “from a store, where the drug is tested for pesticides and contaminants and labeled with information about potency and plant strain, rather than buy from a dealer with no guarantee of quality.”
The editorial also detailed the economic benefits that legal and regulated marijuana sales generate, including tax revenue and job creation.
A previous poll released last month from CommonWealth Beacon and MassINC Polling Group found that 61 percent of likely voters oppose the anti-initiative and just 27 percent support it.
A separate survey released last month by The University of New Hampshire, showed that nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of respondents planned to vote against the anti-cannabis measure, while just 24 percent planned to support it.
Another poll released in August found that Massachusetts voters opposed the marijuana legalization repeal measure, 55 percent to 33 percent.
The latest polling results come as the No On 8 campaign continues to rack up high-profile endorsements from elected officials.
Last week, more than 50 state lawmakers said they will be voting against the anti-marijuana ballot measure. That includes the House speaker and Senate president.
U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) both recently told Marijuana Moment that they will be voting against the anti-cannabis measure.
“We could make improvements in the operations but legalizing cannabis is better than continuing an unregulated, underground market,” Warren said. “So I’m opposed to the repeal. I’m voting no on the ballot to repeal.”
Markey, for his part, said the state’s marijuana legalization law that voters approved in 2016 continues to enjoy “overwhelming support.”
“We’ve had debate,” he said. “The voters are satisfied at this moment with the experience that the state has had with it… I support keeping it on the books and overwhelmingly so do the people of Massachusetts.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) also recently urged voters to reject the measure, saying that “keeping marijuana legal in Massachusetts is both economic justice and racial justice policy.”
Gov. Maura Healey (D) similarly said recently that she opposes the anti-cannabis initiative, saying that “we’ve got to keep recreational marijuana here in Massachusetts.”
“It’s an important industry, the cannabis industry,” the governor said. “And I hope the voters keep cannabis.”
Boston’s mayor also said she is voting against the initiative to roll back marijuana legalization.
Competing campaigns working to pass and defeat the legalization rollback have launched a series of ads trying to convince voters of their respective positions.
The prohibitionist campaign’s ads focus on the dangers of marijuana-impaired driving, while the campaign seeking to keep cannabis sales legal is highlighting the public health and safety harms of sending consumers back to the unregulated market.
The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC), which regulates the legal industry, announced last month that the state has surpassed $10 billion in adult-use cannabis purchases since the market launched in 2018.
CCC Chair Chris Harding told Marijuana Moment that he can’t comment directly on the initiative and that the commission does not take positions on pending ballot questions or legislation, but he said that, in general, “repeal of the adult-use industry could eliminate thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and billions in tax revenue.”
Meanwhile, a top labor union—the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Massachusetts State Council—is urging voters to reject the cannabis legalization rollback initiative.
While the latest survey results provide some comfort to cannabis reform supporters, advocates are not resting.
A coalition of Massachusetts marijuana business leaders, healthcare professionals and other advocates have launched a campaign to defeat the measure.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) recently issued a warning that passage of the legalization rollback measure would have “disastrous political and economic consequences for legal cannabis markets everywhere.”
“Even a too-close victory would spook markets and incentivize a rash of similar initiatives in states around the country, each costing millions to try and defeat,” the group said.
After the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office determined that organizers for the anti-cannabis proposal had turned in enough valid signatures to put the measure before voters, a marijuana reform advocate filed an objection with the State Ballot Law Commission claiming that various signatures were not genuine, obtained through fraudulent means or were not “signed substantially as registered.”
The body rejected the challenge to the legal marijuana rollback measure, however, clearing it to go before voters to decide.
In June, the campaign behind the anti-legalization ballot measure fired a signature gatherer it says was shown appearing to engage in “wholly unacceptable” conduct in a recent video.
As Marijuana Moment reported, a man petitioning for the Massachusetts initiative as well as a similar anti-cannabis proposal in Maine was depicted in recent social media posts seeming to argue that voters who support legal marijuana access should sign the petitions in order to advance or protect reform.
The campaign later said it has “zero tolerance for any circulation tactics that would mislead petition signers.”
“The identified canvasser was immediately terminated, in coordination with our vendor, upon being made aware of the alleged conduct,” the group said. “The conduct apparent in the video would be wholly unacceptable and does not reflect how this campaign operates. We demand honesty, transparency and professionalism from everyone associated with our effort.”
A video posted to Reddit of the signature gatherer shows the man collecting signatures outside a retail store in Massachusetts next to a sign that says “keep cannabis legal.”
When confronted by a marijuana reform supporter who recorded the petitioner’s interactions with voters, he appeared to be trying to convince them that it is important to qualify the anti-cannabis measure for the ballot in order to then defeat it.
“This is what we’re fighting against right here. That’s why we vote no,” he said. “If we can get this to the ballot right here, we vote no.”
The person who captured the video pointed out that Massachusetts voters already approved marijuana legalization years ago, and that the only way it could be imminently repealed is if the new ballot measure qualified for the November election. If the initiative did not get enough signatures to go before voters, the state’s laws would remain the same.
The same man also appeared to also be gathering signatures for a separate measure in Maine that would similarly repeal laws allowing regulated adult-use marijuana sales and home cultivation rights for adults while keeping possession legal and adding new testing requirements for medical cannabis.
A staffer for the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), whose affiliated group SAM Action is largely funding the anti-cannabis ballot campaigns in both states, declined to comment about the petitioner’s conduct when reached by Marijuana Moment.
The campaigns have previously been accused of misleading petitioning tactics.
In Massachusetts, some voters reported that the campaign used fake cover letters for other ballot measures on unrelated issues like affordable housing and same-day voter registration during the first round of petitioning. Legal cannabis supporters filed an earlier formal complaint about the prohibitionist effort’s tactics, but the State Ballot Law Commission rejected the challenge.
The measure also faced a legal challenge from cannabis industry operatives who argued it contains “impermissibly unrelated subjects,” and that the state attorney general’s official summary is “misleading and deficient.” The state Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments on the litigation challenging the anti-marijuana initiative but it ultimately ruled against the lawsuit.
The governor of Massachusetts last month filed legislation proposing to increase military veterans’ access to medical marijuana by allowing them to receive patient cards without having to get a doctor’s recommendation.
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