Next week Florida could become the 25th state to legalize recreational marijuana, which would be a big deal given the state’s large population, its political demographics, and the 60 percent threshold required for voters to approve legalization via a constitutional amendment. Voters in two much less populous states, North Dakota and South Dakota, will consider similar marijuana initiatives, while Nebraska voters will have a chance to legalize medical use of cannabis. And in Massachusetts, where voters approved recreational marijuana legalization in 2016, they will decide whether to decriminalize noncommercial production and possession of five psychedelics derived from plants or mushrooms.
These ballot initiatives reflect both the ongoing collapse of marijuana prohibition, which 38 states and the District of Columbia have abandoned by authorizing medical or recreational use, and the expansion of pharmacological freedom to include additional psychoactive substances. Their fate could signal the extent to which Americans are questioning the assumptions underlying the war on drugs, which seeks to regulate our bodies and minds by preventing us from consuming politically disfavored intoxicants.
Marijuana in Florida
Amendment 3, the Florida initiative, would allow adults 21 or older to possess up to three ounces of marijuana. It would not legalize home cultivation, and initially the only authorized sources of recreational cannabis would be the state’s existing medical marijuana dispensaries—a protectionist provision that benefits entrenched cannabis interests at the expense of consumers and potential competitors.
Passage of the measure nevertheless would be a clear improvement, especially because the state would no longer treat recreational consumers as criminals. Under current law, possessing 20 grams or less is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum $1,000 fine and/or up to a year in jail. Possessing more than that amount is a felony punishable by a maximum $5,000 fine and/or up to five years in prison. Last year, police in Florida reported 3,394 arrests for marijuana possession, up from 2,349 in 2022.
Florida voters approved medical marijuana by a wide margin in 2016, when 71 percent of them said yes to Amendment 2. Two polls conducted this month put support for recreational legalization at 60 percent and 66 percent, respectively. Those results suggest the outcome will be close, especially given the polls’ margins of error (plus or minus about three percentage points in both cases).
Amendment 3’s opponents include Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Attorney General Ashley Moody (R), Sen. Rick Scott (R–Fla.), and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.). DeSantis, who calls the initiative “very, very extreme,” avers that it will fail once voters realize how “radical” it is. His chief complaint is that Amendment 3 imposes “no time, place and manner restrictions,” meaning that “it’s basically a license to have [marijuana] anywhere you want.” The result, he warns, is that Florida cities “will start to smell like marijuana.”
The initiative’s most prominent supporter is Republican presidential nominee (and Florida resident) Donald Trump, who expresses similar concerns about pot odor but notes that state legislators can address that issue by “prohibit[ing] the use of [marijuana] in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities.” Unlike DeSantis, Trump emphasizes the unjust consequences of Florida’s current marijuana laws.
“Someone should not be a criminal in Florida, when this is legal in so many other States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform, in August. “We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of [marijuana] on them.” He reiterated that point in September. “I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” he said. “We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults [to a] safe, tested product.”
It’s a measure of how far the marijuana policy debate has progressed that a Republican presidential candidate is making these points about the benefits of legalization, while a Republican governor’s main objection is that he does not like the smell generated by pot smoking. According to Gallup, 70 percent of Americans—including 87 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of independents, and 55 percent of Republicans—think marijuana should be legal. So Trump is hardly going out on a limb by endorsing legalization in Florida.
If Amendment 3’s fate came down to a popularity contest between DeSantis and Trump, the governor might have an edge. During his unsuccessful bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, DeSantis was always far behind Trump in polls. But DeSantis received more than 59 percent of the vote when he ran for reelection in 2022. By comparison, Trump received 51 percent of the Florida vote in the 2020 presidential election, and recent polls suggest he will get about the same share this year.
The disagreement between DeSantis and Trump reflects a broader split among Republicans on this issue, a development confirmed by the national and state poll numbers. The state survey results are especially striking in light of political trends in Florida.
Previously a purple state, Florida has gone red in recent elections. While registered Democrats still outnumbered registered Republicans as of 2020, the advantage switched in 2021, and the gap has grown since then. Florida Republicans currently outnumber Florida Democrats by about 1 million. Both of the state’s U.S. senators are Republicans, as are 20 of its 28 representatives. The GOP controls both houses of the state legislature and all three of the top executive-branch positions (governor, attorney general, and secretary of state) are held by Republicans.
The fact that Amendment 3 nevertheless has majority support in Florida and may even cross the 60 percent threshold shows that Republican support for pot prohibition is fading. In one of the recent Florida polls, 53 percent of Republicans favored Amendment 3, which is similar to Gallup’s estimate of national support for legalization among Republicans.
Marijuana in South Dakota
South Dakota is even redder than Florida. In 2020, South Dakota voters nevertheless approved two ballot measures that would have simultaneously legalized both medical and recreational marijuana. The medical initiative was favored by nearly 70 percent of voters, while the recreational initiative got 54 percent. After Kristi Noem, South Dakota’s Republican governor, mounted a successful court challenge to the recreational initiative, reformers tried again in 2022, when 53 percent of voters said no. Next week, voters will get another chance to change their minds.
Initiated Measure 29 would allow adults 21 or older to possess two ounces or less and grow up to six plants at home. It also would allow sharing among adults “without consideration.” Like the 2022 initiative but unlike the 2020 version, this year’s ballot measure does not authorize commercial production and distribution.
Polls suggest that legalization will not fare any better in South Dakota this year than it did in 2022. A survey conducted last May put support for the initiative at 42 percent, with 52 percent opposed and the rest undecided. A poll conducted this month was only slightly more encouraging, finding that just 45 percent of likely voters favored the initiative, with 50 percent opposed and 5 percent undecided.
Marijuana in North Dakota
In North Dakota, voters likewise are fine with medical marijuana, which they approved by a 28-point margin in 2016, but leery of recreational legalization, which they rejected in 2018 and 2022. This year they are considering Initiated Measure 5, which would let adults 21 or older possess up to an ounce and grow up to three plants at home. It also would authorize commercial production and distribution by state-licensed businesses.
Judging from a poll conducted last month, the North Dakota initiative has a better chance of passing than the South Dakota measure. In that survey of likely voters, 45 percent favored recreational legalization, 40 percent were opposed, and 15 percent were undecided.
Marijuana in Nebraska
Another red state, Nebraska, currently does not allow medical or recreational use of marijuana. Initiative 437 would allow patients with a “written recommendation” from a “health care practitioner” to “use, possess, and acquire up to five ounces of marijuana to alleviate or treat a medical condition or its symptoms.” Although the initiative does not specify which conditions qualify, it says a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner must state that, in his professional judgment, “the potential benefits of cannabis outweigh the potential harms for the alleviation of a patient’s medical condition, its symptoms, or side effects of the condition’s treatment.”
A poll conducted in late September and early October suggests that Nebraska is likely to join the 38 other states that recognize marijuana as a medicine. In a survey of registered voters, 59 percent supported the initiative, 33 percent opposed it, and 8 percent were undecided.
Psychedelics in Massachusetts
Legalizing marijuana, especially for medical use, might seem like old hat. But a 2024 Massachusetts ballot measure is positioned at the frontier of drug policy reform, following a trail blazed by Oregon and Colorado.
The Oregon initiative, which voters approved in 2020, authorized state-licensed “psilocybin service centers” where adults 21 or older can use the drug under the supervision of a “facilitator” after completing a “preparation session.” The Colorado initiative, which voters approved in 2022, went further, decriminalizing noncommercial production, sharing, possession, and use of five psychedelics: psilocybin, psilocyn (another psychoactive component of “magic mushrooms”), dimethyltryptamine (DMT, the active ingredient in ayahuasca), ibogaine (a psychedelic derived from the root bark of the iboga tree), and mescaline (the active ingredient in peyote). The initiative also authorized a system of supervised psychedelic use at state-licensed “healing centers.”
The Massachusetts initiative, Question 4, follows Colorado’s model, covering the same activities and the same substances. In addition to authorizing state-licensed “psychedelic therapy centers,” it would allow adults 21 or older to “grow, possess, and use natural psychedelic substances” on their own.
Polls conducted in September and October suggest that voters who have made up their minds about Question 4 are about evenly divided. But a substantial share of voters—14 percent in both surveys—were undecided. Depending on which way they break, Massachusetts could become the second state to legalize independent psychedelic use.
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