Organizers are “confident” they have submitted enough signatures to put a question on the 2026 ballot that would ask “if recreational marijuana should be repealed”
There has been significant commotion around the so-called Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy, a referendum that Mass prohibitionists are attempting to place on the 2026 ballot. We’ve helped cause some of that stir, chiefly because the effort to end recreational cannabis sales has been riding on nonsense.
As we observed and reported over the past month, paid signature gatherers working for the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts hit grocery store parking lots with clipboards and lies. In some cases, in their quest to obtain 75,000 signatures by Nov. 19, they told just some or even none of the truth to voters.
In other cases, dozens of people reported experiencing a bait and switch, in which the workers asked them to sign for a ballot measure on another topic entirely, like rent control, and then slid them the sheet with the cannabis language.
Despite all sorts of outrage over the topic and people reporting such examples to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Elections Division, the anti-weed campaigners and their hired guns marched on, no doubt emboldened by the fact that there was little which could be done in the moment about their widespread deception. And now, they’re claiming that they have enough ink to advance to the next phase. Here’s Chris Lisinski reporting for CommonWealth Beacon:
A decade after nearly 54 percent of voters supported legalizing recreational cannabis use, they might be asked whether to reverse course.
Organizers are “confident” they have submitted enough signatures to put a question on the 2026 ballot that would ask “if recreational marijuana should be repealed,” according to Wendy Wakeman, a spokesperson for the campaign.
“The rollout of marijuana sales in Massachusetts has been rife with corruption,” Wakeman said. “The results of legalized marijuana have been higher traffic incidents and problematic experiences of parents, employers, and mental-health professionals. Medical marijuana under our question would remain unchanged, but it’s time to take another look at the unfettered sale of a controversial product.”
Recreational marijuana has been popular among Bay Staters since it launched, but oversight of the industry has been marked by disruption and upheaval. Lawmakers are moving toward an overhaul of the Cannabis Control Commission.
It is unclear what will happen from here. Pro-cannabis attorneys have been gathering examples of the subterfuge, while state officials also have enough to give the prohibitionists’ signatures a hard look. More from CommonWealth Beacon below:
Proponents of each new measure (not the gun law repeal) must gather at least 74,574 signatures from registered voters and file them with local election officials for certification by the end of the day Wednesday.
Crossing the required threshold does not automatically guarantee a spot on the ballot. Signatures can be invalidated over technical issues, like improper marks on the form, and no more than one-quarter of the total haul can come from a single county.
[Secretary of the Commonwealth William] Galvin will not officially announce which measures collected enough signatures until next month — once certification is done, campaigns must refile signatures with his office by December 3 — and several additional requirements will follow that.
Update (Nov. 20) – The Boston Globe published an article about the legalization repeal initiative on Thursday. No surprise, “In interviews with the Globe, five people said they witnessed signature-gatherers for the campaign describing the proposed question in misleading terms, such as saying it was for affordable housing, reducing impaired driving, or protecting youths from being jailed over pot.”
Notably, the spokesperson for the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts “declined to name the firm the coalition hired or who is funding the petition.” As reporter Yogev Toby noted, the coalition is not required to disclose campaign finances until January.
In the meantime, here’s the campaign’s best attempt to assure members of the public that its actions are legit, as explained to the Globe:
“The committee 100 percent does not support folks misrepresenting or lying about the petition. … Even if this is happening, the bottom line is that signing something you didn’t read is not on anybody but you.”
