Recreational Cannabis Back on the Horizon as Smart & Safe Florida Refiles Amendment
Smart & Safe Florida is mounting a second attempt to legalize recreational marijuana, seeking to qualify a revised amendment for the state’s November 2026 ballot after its first try fell short last year.
The political committee, backed primarily by medical cannabis giant Trulieve, sponsored 2024’s Amendment 3, which would have allowed adults 21 and older to purchase and possess marijuana. Voters approved the measure by a 56% to 44% margin, but Florida requires 60% support for constitutional amendments, dooming the proposal despite majority backing. It became the most expensive cannabis campaign in U.S. history, with Trulieve alone contributing more than $140 million.
The new proposal, filed under the title “Adult Personal Use of Marijuana,” closely tracks the earlier measure. It would legalize marijuana for adults 21 and older, allow possession of up to three ounces, prohibit smoking or vaping in public spaces, and bar packaging or marketing designed to appeal to children. Existing medical marijuana treatment centers would receive the first licenses to sell to adult-use consumers, with lawmakers empowered to create additional license types.
To reach the 2026 ballot, Smart & Safe Florida must submit more than 880,000 verified voter signatures and win Florida Supreme Court approval of the ballot language. A new state law backed by Governor Ron DeSantis has made that task harder, shortening the time petition gatherers have to turn in signed forms and imposing steep fines for rejected petitions.
The campaign says it has collected hundreds of thousands of petitions, but the effort has been buffeted by legal fights. In November, a Leon County circuit judge sided with state officials and upheld the invalidation of roughly 200,000 signatures, about one-third of the total the campaign had submitted as valid. Rather than appeal, Smart & Safe Florida has shifted its focus to collecting new petitions while pursuing a separate lawsuit accusing the DeSantis administration of stalling reviews to keep the measure off the ballot.
Even with the setback, election officials forwarded the proposed amendment to Attorney General Ashley Moody and advised the campaign that the measure is headed to the Florida Supreme Court for review. The court will consider whether the ballot summary is clear and whether the initiative complies with a single-subject requirement.
Money is again flowing into the legalization push. Trulieve reported donating nearly $20 million to Smart & Safe Florida in the first three months of 2025, on top of the nine-figure sum it poured into the 2024 campaign. Industry analysts say adult-use legalization could expand Florida’s medical-only market, estimated at $1.8 billion in annual sales, into one of the largest cannabis markets in the country.
Opponents, including social conservative groups and law-enforcement organizations, argue the amendment would accelerate youth access, worsen impaired driving, and entrench a cannabis monopoly by privileging existing operators. They point to Amendment 3’s defeat as evidence that Floridians remain wary of full legalization.
Smart & Safe Florida counters that the new amendment keeps bans on public use and impaired driving and lets adults decide whether to use cannabis in the privacy of their homes. With petitions to gather, tighter rules on citizen initiatives, and the same 60% supermajority hurdle, the 2026 campaign is shaping up as another expensive and closely watched test of Florida’s appetite for recreational marijuana.