Voters in Massachusetts have rejected a ballot initiative that would have rolled back the state’s marijuana legalization law.
Question 8 was trailing by a significant margin of 73 percent to 27 percent on Tuesday night, with an estimated 24 percent of ballots counted, according to The Associated Press.
If approved, the measure would have repealed laws allowing the regulated commercial sales of recreational cannabis and home cultivation while maintaining legal possession and continuing the medical marijuana system.
“There’s no ‘buyer’s remorse’ among voters when it comes to legalizing and regulating marijuana,” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. “In fact, more Massachusetts voters support legalization today than did a decade ago, and these election results prove it.”
“Proponents of this failed effort spent millions of dollars to, in their own words, reset the conversation around cannabis policy,” he said. “They found out the hard way that the public hasn’t changed their minds. Americans favor legalization and regulation over the failed policy of marijuana prohibition.”
“This campaign was never about promoting the health and safety of Massachusetts residents. It was a trial balloon by prohibitionist groups intent upon rolling back legal cannabis markets nationwide. This decisive election day defeat will likely cause these groups, and those who fund them, to reconsider those plans.”
Adam J. Smith, executive director for the Marijuana Policy Project, said that “despite a well-funded scare campaign, Massachusetts voters have chosen common sense by defeating the ballot initiative to end the state’s legal adult-use cannabis market.”
“This outcome shows that Massachusetts voters recognize the true value of regulated cannabis markets: reducing youth access, which means significantly fewer kids using cannabis; safer access for adults to rigorously tested and properly labeled products; plummeting arrest rates, which means fewer lives needlessly disrupted and fewer tax dollars wasted; tens of thousands of new jobs, and hundreds of millions in new revenues; and a recognition of personal liberty and freedom of consciousness,” he said.
Polls leading up to Election Day consistently found that a strong majority of Massachusetts voters opposed the anti-cannabis proposal, and one survey showed that most believe legal marijuana has been good for the state’s economy, tax revenue, criminal justice system and local communities.
A host of major politicians had publicly said they planned to vote against making marijuana sales illegal again.
That includes Gov. Maura Healey (D), who said “the cannabis industry is important” and her Republican challenger for reelection, Mike Minogue, who despite having opposed legalization initially said he is “not in favor of repealing it.”
U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) both recently told Marijuana Moment that they would 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 urged voters to reject the measure, saying that “keeping marijuana legal in Massachusetts is both economic justice and racial justice policy.”
More than 50 state lawmakers said they would be voting against the anti-marijuana ballot measure—including the House speaker and Senate president.
Boston’s mayor also said she opposed the initiative to roll back marijuana legalization.
The City Council in Worcester—the state’s second-most populous municipality—passed a resolution urging voters to reject the anti-cannabis initiative.
Competing campaigns working to pass and defeat the legalization rollback launched a series of ads trying to convince voters of their respective positions.
The prohibitionist campaign’s ads focused on the dangers of marijuana-impaired driving, while the campaign seeking to keep cannabis sales legal highlighted 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 in September 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 couldn’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— urged voters to reject the cannabis legalization rollback initiative.
The National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers (NABLEO) also announced its endorsement for the No On 8 campaign, and a group of more than 50 current and former law enforcement officials separately signed an open letter opposing the anti-cannabis initiative.
Leading up to the election, the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) issued a warning that passage of the legalization rollback measure would have had “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.
Broken Lizard, the comedy troupe behind films such as Super Troopers and Beerfest, recently launched a video ad that explains how Massachusetts residents who want to keep cannabis sales legal should vote on the measure given its confusing wording and path to the ballot.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives recently passed a bill to increase military veterans’ access to medical marijuana by allowing them to receive patient cards without having to get a doctor’s recommendation and adding additional qualifying conditions.
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