DeSantis administration is interfering with new recreational pot amendment, lawsuit alleges
The organizers behind an amendment to legalize marijuana in Florida contend that the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis is interfering with their efforts to make the 2026 ballot and they have asked a court to stop it.
Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee sponsoring the amendment and which is largely supported by Trulieve, a medical marijuana company, last week filed a lawsuit over an effort by state election officials to toss out as many as 200,000 signatures for the initiative. They call the actions by Secretary of State Cord Byrd, appointed by DeSantis, “unlawful” and unprecedented.
Smart & Safe needs to collect more than 880,000 signatures to make the ballot. The new lawsuit points out that Maria Matthews, head of the Division Elections, told local supervisors to throw out signed and validated signatures because Smart & Safe Florida did not provide the people it reached out to by mail with a copy of the entire amendment.
Matthew’s edict to toss the signatures came after Byrd in March advised Smart & Safe Florida that the petition it was mailing voters and asking them to return wasn’t valid because it didn’t contain the wording of the amendment.
https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/10/21/desantis-administration-is-interfering-with-new-recreational-pot-amendment-lawsuit-alleges/
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