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by Grace Bellinghausen
Voters could soon get another chance to weigh in on recreational marijuana after the proposed amendment was sent to the Florida Supreme Court.
According to CBS12 News partners at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Attorney General James Uthmeier submitted a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana to the Florida Supreme Court, triggering a review of the ballot initiative.
Smart & Safe Florida's petition to allow recreational marijuana far exceeded the 220,016 signatures needed to trigger the Supreme Court's review. The Supreme Court reportedly reviews issues such as whether proposed constitutional amendments are limited to single subjects and whether the proposed ballot language is clear.
To qualify for the November 2026 ballot, the political action committee – primarily funded by medical marijuana company Trulieve – must amass 880,062 valid signatures by February 1. The Division of Elections website shows the initiative has 675,307 valid signatures as of Sunday.
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But the ballot initiative has faced its share of challenges along the way.
In October, Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews ordered supervisors to scrap petitions that didn't include the entire text of the proposed constitutional amendment. Matthews said that the mailed petitions were "not obtained legally" because Smart & Safe Florida made changes to the format of the petition after the secretary of state's office approved it.
When Amendment 3 failed to pass in 2024, its main opponents were Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Republican Party, who said it was written to create a weed “monopoly” in the state. They emphasized the dangers to drivers, teens, and young kids.
But, the landscape seems to be changing for the Republican Party with President Donald Trump signing an executive order on Thursday to reclassify Marijuana as a less dangerous drug.
Whether the amendment qualifies for the ballot will now be up to the Florida Supreme Court and valid signatures.
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