The two U.S. senators who represent Massachusetts are opposing an initiative on the November ballot that seeks to roll back the state’s cannabis legalization law.
In interviews with Marijuana Moment, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) said they will be voting against the anti-cannabis measure.
“We could make improvements in the operations but legalizing cannabis is better than continuing an unregulated, underground market,” Warren said. “So I’m opposed to the repeal. I’m voting no on the ballot to repeal.”
“I understand that we don’t have all the right answers on cannabis yet, but repeal of the statute doesn’t seem like a move to put us in a better place,” she said. “There are improvements we could make, but repeal is not one of them.”
Markey, for his part, said the state’s marijuana legalization law that voters approved in 2016 continues to enjoy “overwhelming support.”
“We’ve had debate,” he said. “The voters are satisfied at this moment with the experience that the state has had with it.”
“Obviously we can always be talking about additional safety-related issues, but the polling shows that 75 percent of people in the state want to keep it on the books,” Markey said. “I support keeping it on the books and overwhelmingly so do the people of Massachusetts.”
Warren and Markey’s comments represent the latest high-profile endorsements for the campaign to defeat Question 8—which would repeal laws allowing the regulated commercial sales of recreational cannabis and home cultivation while maintaining legal possession and continuing the medical marijuana system.
Earlier this week, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) urged voters to reject the measure, saying that “keeping marijuana legal in Massachusetts is both economic justice and racial justice policy.”
Gov. Maura Healey (D) similarly said recently that she opposes the anti-cannabis initiative, saying that “we’ve got to keep recreational marijuana here in Massachusetts.”
“It’s an important industry, the cannabis industry,” the governor said. “And I hope the voters keep cannabis.”
Meanwhile, a new poll released last week shows that most Massachusetts voters oppose the ballot measure to roll back marijuana legalization.
The survey, published by CommonWealth Beacon and conducted by MassINC Polling Group (MPG), shows that 61 percent of likely voters oppose the initiative. Just 27 percent of respondents said they favor the anti-cannabis ballot measure, while 11 percent are undecided and 1 percent responded that they would prefer not to state their opinion.
A separate poll released last month by The University of New Hampshire, showed that nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of respondents plan nedto vote against the anti-cannabis measure, while just 24 percent planned to support it.
Another survey released in August found that Massachusetts voters opposed the marijuana legalization repeal measure, 55 percent to 33 percent.
Competing campaigns working to pass and defeat the legalization rollback have launched a series of ads trying to convince voters of their respective positions.
The prohibitionist campaign’s ads focus on the dangers of marijuana-impaired driving, while the campaign seeking to keep cannabis sales legal is highlighting the public health and safety harms of sending consumers back to the unregulated market.
The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, which regulates the legal industry, announced last month that the state has surpassed $10 billion in adult-use cannabis purchases since the market launched in 2018.
CCC Chair Chris Harding told Marijuana Moment that he can’t comment directly on the initiative and that the commission does not take positions on pending ballot questions or legislation, but he said that, in general, “repeal of the adult-use industry could eliminate thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and billions in tax revenue.”
Meanwhile, a top labor union—the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Massachusetts State Council—is urging voters to reject the cannabis legalization rollback initiative.
While the latest survey results provide some comfort to cannabis reform supporters, advocates are not resting.
A coalition of Massachusetts marijuana business leaders, healthcare professionals and other advocates have launched a campaign to defeat the measure.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) recently issued a warning that passage of the legalization rollback measure would have “disastrous political and economic consequences for legal cannabis markets everywhere.”
“Even a too-close victory would spook markets and incentivize a rash of similar initiatives in states around the country, each costing millions to try and defeat,” the group said.
After the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office determined that organizers for the anti-cannabis proposal had turned in enough valid signatures to put the measure before voters, a marijuana reform advocate filed an objection with the State Ballot Law Commission claiming that various signatures were not genuine, obtained through fraudulent means or were not “signed substantially as registered.”
The body rejected the challenge to the legal marijuana rollback measure, however, clearing it to go before voters to decide.
In June, the campaign behind the anti-legalization ballot measure fired a signature gatherer it says was shown appearing to engage in “wholly unacceptable” conduct in a recent video.
As Marijuana Moment reported, a man petitioning for the Massachusetts initiative as well as a similar anti-cannabis proposal in Maine was depicted in recent social media posts seeming to argue that voters who support legal marijuana access should sign the petitions in order to advance or protect reform.
The campaign later said it has “zero tolerance for any circulation tactics that would mislead petition signers.”
“The identified canvasser was immediately terminated, in coordination with our vendor, upon being made aware of the alleged conduct,” the group said. “The conduct apparent in the video would be wholly unacceptable and does not reflect how this campaign operates. We demand honesty, transparency and professionalism from everyone associated with our effort.”
A video posted to Reddit of the signature gatherer shows the man collecting signatures outside a retail store in Massachusetts next to a sign that says “keep cannabis legal.”
When confronted by a marijuana reform supporter who recorded the petitioner’s interactions with voters, he appeared to be trying to convince them that it is important to qualify the anti-cannabis measure for the ballot in order to then defeat it.
“This is what we’re fighting against right here. That’s why we vote no,” he said. “If we can get this to the ballot right here, we vote no.”
The person who captured the video pointed out that Massachusetts voters already approved marijuana legalization years ago, and that the only way it could be imminently repealed is if the new ballot measure qualified for the November election. If the initiative does not get enough signatures to go before voters, the state’s laws will remain the same.
“It’s my job,” the petitioner insisted, however. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“It’s a group of rich folks from out of state that want to basically take marijuana to when it was a medical marijuana card,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen.”
The same man also appeared to also be gathering signatures for a separate measure in Maine that would similarly repeal laws allowing regulated adult-use marijuana sales and home cultivation rights for adults while keeping possession legal and adding new testing requirements for medical cannabis.
A staffer for the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), whose affiliated group SAM Action is largely funding the anti-cannabis ballot campaigns in both states, declined to comment about the petitioner’s conduct when reached by Marijuana Moment.
The campaigns have previously been accused of misleading petitioning tactics.
In Massachusetts, some voters reported that the campaign used fake cover letters for other ballot measures on unrelated issues like affordable housing and same-day voter registration during the first round of petitioning. Legal cannabis supporters filed an earlier formal complaint about the prohibitionist effort’s tactics, but the State Ballot Law Commission rejected the challenge.
The measure also faced a legal challenge from cannabis industry operatives who argued it contains “impermissibly unrelated subjects,” and that the state attorney general’s official summary is “misleading and deficient.” The state Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments on the litigation challenging the anti-marijuana initiative but it ultimately ruled against the lawsuit.
The governor of Massachusetts last month filed legislation proposing to increase military veterans’ access to medical marijuana by allowing them to receive patient cards without having to get a doctor’s recommendation.
The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
