Floridians won't vote on recreational marijuana this November, state says

Romy Ellenbogen, Miami Herald on Feb 2, 2026

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A proposed amendment that would have let adults buy and use recreational marijuana failed to qualify for Florida’s 2026 ballot, the Department of State said Sunday.

Smart & Safe Florida, the group behind the marijuana campaign, fell short of the nearly 880,000 verified signatures required, along with 21 other proposed constitutional amendments, according to the Department of State.

The campaign’s shortfall comes after months of state directives that tossed out tens of thousands of verified petitions from Florida voters.

That includes a state push to remove about 200,000 petitions that were directly mailed to voters and about 70,000 petitions collected by non-Florida residents or signed by inactive voters, a technical designation that does not remove a person’s ability to vote.

Smart & Safe Florida challenged those directives in court, but judges largely sided with the state.

In a statement on Sunday, a spokesperson for the marijuana campaign called the state’s declaration “premature,” saying that the final and complete totals were 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,” the spokesperson said.

A state database shows that the marijuana campaign has about 784,000 valid signatures.

As the Feb. 1 qualifying deadline approached, the state also mounted pressure on local elections offices, including having the state’s election crimes office conduct in-person audits of some petitions.

On Thursday, Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office told supervisors to send over certain petitions for a criminal investigation by 5 p.m. Friday — the end of the last business day before today’s deadline.

In a Thursday interview, Broward County Supervisor Joe Scott questioned why the state’s inquiry couldn’t wait until next week.

Scott said the state has seemed “focused on trying to stop” the marijuana amendment drive.

The state has butted up against the marijuana campaign in the past. In 2024, Smart & Safe Florida ran Amendment 3, a similar proposal to allow recreational marijuana.

In the lead-up to that election, the state spent taxpayer dollars on advertisements that Smart & Safe Florida said were designed to oppose the amendment.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration also that year diverted $10 million in Medicaid money to the state-run Hope Florida Foundation, which then passed the money along to nonprofits that ultimately sent millions to an anti-Amendment 3 committee controlled by Uthmeier.

The 2024 amendment failed to get the 60% of voter support needed for approval.