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by Gershon Harrell
It's official. Marijuana will not appear on the 2026 ballot for the state election. Documents from the Supreme Court of Florida show the case was dismissed Wednesday in a 6-1 vote. Chief Justice Carlos G. Muñiz, John D. Couriel, Jamie R. Grosshans, Renatha Francis, Meredith L. Sasso, and Adam S. Tanenbaum voted in favor, while Jorge Labarga dissented. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — It's official. Marijuana will not appear on the 2026 ballot for the state election.
Documents from the Supreme Court of Florida show the case was dismissed Wednesday in a 6-1 vote. Chief Justice Carlos G. Muñiz, John D. Couriel, Jamie R. Grosshans, Renatha Francis, Meredith L. Sasso, and Adam S. Tanenbaum voted in favor, while Jorge Labarga dissented
Following the decision, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, posted on X, that the Florida Supreme Court dismissed the case that would allow for the use of recreational marijuana to appear on the 2026.
Uthmeier posted: "Even with all the fraud and forgery, the latest weed initiative couldn't garner enough public support to make the ballot. The Florida Supreme Court appropriately just dismissed the case. Floridians can continue to breathe the free air for another election cycle."
The proposed constitutional amendment shot down by the Supreme Court comes only days after the Department of State determined that Smart & Safe — the organization behind the initiative — fell short of the nearly 880,000 verified petition signatures required to qualify.
See also: Last chance: Drivers rush to test before Florida's English-only rule takes effect
The state's database said the campaign had secured roughly 784,000 valid signatures by the Feb. 1 deadline — well below the threshold needed. The shortfall followed months of state directives that resulted in the removal of tens of thousands of signatures, including approximately 200,000 petitions mailed directly to voters and another 70,000 collected by no-Florida residents or signed by voters classified as inactive.
Smart & Safe pushed back against the state's announcement stating it was "premature". The campaign leaders argued they submitted more than 1.4 million petitions and believe that once counties finish reporting their final tallies, the initiative will exceed the requirement.
The campaign said in a statement, "We believe the declaration by the Secretary of State is premature, as the final and complete county by county totals for validated petitions are not yet reported. We submitted over 1.4 million signatures and believe when they are all counted, we will have more than enough to make ballot.”
In a press conference Monday, the attorney general said many of the campaign's signatures were fraudulent. On X, he posted "Smart & Safe failed to get its amendment on the 2026 ballot despite numerous cases of fraudulent petitions. The work of our Office of Statewide Prosecution will continue. We will protect the integrity of Florida's Constitution by holding every last fraudster accountable."
CBS12 reached out to Smart & Safe Florida on Monday who said, "The people in question who are apparently under investigation were all reported to authorities by the Smart & Safe campaign. Further all of the initiative petitions that were suspect were also reported by the campaign."
This is not the first clash between the DeSantis administration and Smart & Safe Florida. A similar proposal — Amendment 3 — was placed on the 2024 ballot but failed to reach the 60% threshold required for passage. Campaign officials said that during that cycle, the state invested taxpayer funds in advertisements opposing the measure, while also channeling millions in redirected Medicaid dollars through nonprofit groups that eventually funded anti-amendment efforts.
The marijuana campaign has long argued that the state’s verification process is inconsistent and overly burdensome, pointing to wide gaps between county-level petition reporting and the totals shown on the state website. Those discrepancies, they say, have made it difficult to track real-time progress toward qualification and to make strategic decisions about where additional signatures are needed.
With the deadline now passed, the recreational marijuana amendment joins 21 other initiative efforts that failed to make the 2026 ballot.
On Monday CBS12 asked it's viewers if they thought the referendum to legalize recreational marijuana should be on the ballot. 77% of CBS12's audience said yes, while 23% were against.
That poll is still open on CBS12.com.
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