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“I do not support recreational marijuana. I think the current regulatory system around medicinal use is fine.”
By Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
The issue of whether Florida should legalize recreational cannabis went away as a significant campaign issue earlier this year after Smart & Safe Florida, the organization behind an initiative to put it back before voters this November, fell short of the nearly 880,000 verified petition signatures required to qualify for the statewide ballot.
That failure came a year-and-a-half after nearly 56 percent of Floridians voted to legalize adult use of recreational marijuana on the November 2024 ballot, a clear majority but short of the 60 percent required for passage.
While it’s not something voters will decide this year, Floridians might want to know where their candidates for statewide office stand.
Speaking during a “Business Women for Byron” campaign event Tuesday at the Getaway, a waterfront restaurant and Tiki bar in St. Petersburg, the first question asked by an audience member to GOP gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds was his position on the topic.
“I do not support recreational marijuana,” Donalds replied. “I think the current regulatory system around medicinal use is fine.”
Donalds has previously acknowledged that he was arrested for possessing “a dime bag of marijuana” as a teenager, and admitted to CBS Miami recently that he actually had sold small amounts of cannabis as a youth.
He now says that he doesn’t support expanding the legal use of weed beyond the 924,820 Floridians listed as qualified medical marijuana patients, according to the state Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
The other Republicans running for governor share Donalds’s sentiments.
“I oppose recreational marijuana in Florida,” investment firm CEO James Fishback told the Phoenix in a text message. “I have seen what it has done to cities that have already tried it, from New York to Chicago to Washington D.C. The foul stench of pot in public parks and outside our schools can never come to Florida.”
However, Fishback says he will always protect the right of those “with a legitimate medical purpose, including our U.S. military veterans.”
“No one should be denied herbal medicine and pushed toward addictive big pharma prescriptions for pain,” he said. “As Governor, I will protect medical marijuana. But I won’t tolerate hoodlums smoking pot in a public park, just as we already don’t tolerate them drinking in one.”
“I’ve been clear from day one. I am completely against legalizing marijuana,” Lt. Gov Jay Collins said in a video posted on social media on April 26. “We’ve seen the impact in other states, and that’s not where Florida is headed. I stand with Governor DeSantis on this. No compromises, and no money from the marijuana industry. That can’t be said for all of my opponents.”
“I’m against full blown recreational marijuana,” former House Speaker Paul Renner said Wednesday during a roundtable discussion of high energy prices in Hillsborough County.
“We have medical. It was put in the Constitution [in 2016]. If people want to get it, they can get it. And we opened that up to the extent where it needs to be, but I’m opposed to recreational. Period. If it came back on the ballot, I would campaign against it like Gov. DeSantis did.”
DeSantis announced in June 2024 that he would use a political action committee to fight the constitutional amendment on recreational marijuana, saying he could not believe that the Florida Supreme Court allowed the language of the measure to qualify for that November’s ballot.
He later used tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to campaign against both that proposal and another measure that would have enshrined abortion rights in Florida, according to a report by the Tampa Bay Times.
The Phoenix reached out to the two major Democrats running for governor this year: former GOP U.S. Rep. David Jolly and Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.
“I think the governor’s role is to represent the majority of the state, and the majority of the state asked for it, and I think that we should do it,” Jolly told the Phoenix in a phone call Tuesday.
The Pinellas County Democrat says he actually voted against Amendment 3 in 2024, the one calling for legalizing adult use of recreational marijuana.
But since he announced his candidacy last year, Jolly has emphasized that he would work to implement all recent constitutional amendments that have been passed by a majority of Floridians but failed to get the high 60 percent margin required for passage.
“Recreational marijuana got more than 50 percent of the vote in the constitutional amendment process and I pledged to support the enactment and introduce legislatively any amendment that got more than 50 percent of the vote. That includes open primaries, recreational marijuana, and Amendment 4 on reproductive freedom,” he said.
The only major gubernatorial candidate whose stance the Phoenix was unable to clarify was Demings. While serving as the police chief for the city of Orlando in the 2010s, Demings opposed the constitutional amendments that would have legalized medical marijuana in both 2014 and 2016.
The Phoenix reached out by phone and by email to the Demings campaign for two days this week but did not receive a response. Calls to the phone number listed on the most recent press release from the Demings campaign were answered by a recording saying that the person with the number had not set up a voice mail system.
One prominent Florida Republican who supported Amendment 3 in 2024 was President Donald Trump.
“As I have previously stated, I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use. We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults, to safe, tested product,” Trump posted on Truth Social in September 2024. “As a Floridian, I will be voting YES on Amendment 3 this November.”
In that post, the president promised that if elected back to the White House he would work towards changing marijuana from a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act to a Schedule III drug—which he did in December in an executive order.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced last month that it would immediately move FDA-approved marijuana products, along with items regulated by a state medical marijuana license, to Schedule III. That puts medical cannabis into the group of regulated drugs with recognized medical uses, such as Tylenol, rather than Schedule I drugs, like heroin and LSD, which are considered to have no medical use and have a high potential for abuse.
This story was first published by Florida Phoenix.
Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
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