A Massachusetts campaign seeking to put an initiative on the 2026 ballot to roll back the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law is “confident” they turned in enough signatures this week to qualify—and they’re also pushing back against allegations that some of its petitioners violated election laws by peddling misleading claims about the measure.
Wendy Wakeman, a spokesperson for Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts behind the “Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy” initiative, said the team believes they’ve submitted more than the 74,574 valid signatures needed to advance to the next step toward ballot placement.
“The committee is confident it will have obtained sufficient signatures to place the question on the ballot,” Wakeman told Marijuana Moment on Thursday.
The campaign turned in its signed petitions on the initial deadline Wednesday, but they must still be processed by local officials and then refiled with the state by December 3. The campaign previously said it’s aiming to submit more than 100,000 signatures to ensure the measure qualifies, though it’s unclear how many they’ve submitted so far.
“The rollout of marijuana sales in Massachusetts has been rife with corruption,” Wakeman told CommonWealth Beacon.
“The results of legalized marijuana have been higher traffic incidents and problematic experiences of parents, employers, and mental-health professionals,” she said. “Medical marijuana under our question would remain unchanged, but it’s time to take another look at the unfettered sale of a controversial product.”
Under proposed initiative, adults 21 and older could still possess up to an ounce of cannabis, only five grams of which could be a marijuana concentrate product. Possession of more than one ounce but less than two ounces would be effectively decriminalized, with violators subject to a $100 fine. Adults could also continue to gift cannabis between each other without remuneration.
But provisions in the state’s voter-approved marijuana law that allow for commercial cannabis retailers and access to regulated products by adults would be repealed under the proposal. Adults’ right to cultivate cannabis at home would also be repealed. The medical cannabis program would remain intact, however.
In a separate interview with News Service this week, Wakeman said that “a group of parents and medical professionals, mental health professionals, educators, church leaders got together, and there are ways in which the rollout of recreational marijuana just hasn’t worked for people.
“That has to do with—it’s unregulated levels of THC in marijuana products,” she said. “Some of the gummies seemed to be geared toward children.”
Wakeman said that “most” signatures for the initiative were collected by paid professionals. But the campaign’s professionalism has come under question over recent weeks, with various claims from residents that they observed petitioners sharing misleading information about what the measure would accomplish. The state attorney general’s office has confirmed it’s received complaints to that end.
Wakeman refuted those allegations when asked to comment by Marijuana Moment.
“The ballot committee trained its signature gatherers. Folks worked hard and got the job done, via fair and ethical means,” she said on Thursday. “We have no concerns that signatures will be declared invalid on the basis of specious claims found on Facebook and Reddit.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s (D) office—which cleared the campaign for signature gathering in September–has also stressed to voters the importance of reading their summary, which is required to go at the top of the signature form, before signing any petitions.
Wakeman, for her part, told News Service that there’s been “quite a bit of political corruption that surrounds the whole brand new cannabis industry,” and she similarly pushed back against claims that petitioners have used “unsavory” tactics to amass signatures, calling those allegations “completely off the mark.”
In comments to The Boston Globe, the activist added that the “committee 100 percent does not support folks misrepresenting or lying about the petition.” But she also said that, “if this is happening,” then those who signed the petition based on misinformation without reading it only have themselves to blame.
To that point, because misstating the content of a ballot measure is considered protected political speech, the attorney general’s office has taken the added step of putting out an advisory about the need to do independent research before voters attach their name to an initiative petition. The advisory didn’t specifically mention the cannabis proposal, however.
Meanwhile, the head of Massachusetts’s marijuana regulatory agency recently suggested that the measure to effectively recriminalize recreational cannabis sales could imperil tax revenue that’s being used to support substance misuse treatment efforts and other public programs.
If enough of the initial signature submissions are validated, the proposal will then go before the legislature, with lawmakers having until May 6 to enact it into law or propose a substitute. If they do not, organizers will then need to collect 12,429 additional valid voter signatures to put the measure on the ballot.
Whether the cannabis measures make the cut is yet to be seen. Voters approved legalization at the ballot in 2016, with sales launching two years later. And the past decade has seen the market evolve and expand. As of August, Massachusetts officials reported more than $8 billion in adult-use marijuana sales.
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Senate approved a bill that would double the legal marijuana possession limit for adults and revise the regulatory framework for the state’s adult-use cannabis market. Similar legislation also advanced through the House earlier this year.
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Separately, the state Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) recently launched an online platform aimed at helping people find jobs, workplace training and networking opportunities in the state’s legal cannabis industry.
State lawmakers have also been considering setting tighter restrictions on intoxicating hemp-derived products and a plan to allow individual entities to control a larger number of cannabis establishments.
Also in Massachusetts, legislators who were working on a state budget butted heads with CCC officials, who’ve said they can’t make critical technology improvements without more money from the legislature.
Massachusetts lawmakers additionally approved a bill to establish a pilot program for the regulated therapeutic use of psychedelics. And two committees have separately held hearings to discuss additional psilocybin-related measures.
Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
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