Headed into Election Day on Tuesday, the quest to repeal Massachusetts’ $1.65 billion annual cannabis industry – and, for cannabis advocates, the opportunity to hand marijuana reform’s sworn enemy a stinging rebuke – is that state’s most expensive ballot initiative campaign, campaign finance records show.
With $3.6 million spent in support to $2.6 million against through Oct. 15, the most recent data available, the cannabis question has drawn more spending than efforts to change primary voting and tweak firearms laws, records show.
Despite the significant financial disadvantage, which is likely to have widened over the past two weeks, recent polling shows Question 8 going down in decisive and costly defeat, with most of the Bay State’s leading elected officials united against it.
Who is behind the campaign to repeal Massachusetts adult-use cannabis sales?
If Question 8 loses, it could spell trouble for federal marijuana policy reform’s most reliable foe. With more than $3.7 million in reported contributions, nearly all of Question 8’s financial support is from the political arm of Washington, D.C area-based dark-money nonprofit Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
SAM is also the Trump administration marijuana rescheduling push’s chief antagonist, organizing opposition in both the courts as well as at historic hearings before a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration administrative law judge this past summer.
The second-highest contributor to Question 8 is $50,000 from a Sacramento, California-area anti-drug activist. Only seven individuals contributed to the campaign, with the top contribution at $500.
Though SAM’s donors are unknown – the organization is not required to reveal its funders under federal law, and has not done so – it’s believed in cannabis industry circles that they’ll be unwilling to continue funding losing political efforts if Question 8 is decisively defeated. SAM is also bankrolling a similar effort in Maine.
After a costly signature gathering campaign fraught with controversy, with paid signature-gatherers repeatedly and reliably accused of misleading voters, most of Question 8’s spending has been on advertising buys, records show.
Who is behind keeping Massachusetts adult-use cannabis legal?
To counter that, opponents of Question 8 raised more than $2.75 million to prevent the first rollback of an adult-use industry across two campaign committees, records show.
The campaign has earned support from major cannabis multistate operators with presences in Massachusetts as well as single-state operators and some ancillary businesses.
Through Oct. 15, leading contributors to the Committee to Protect Cannabis Regulation included:
- INSA, a Chicopee, Mass.-based cannabis retailer, 265,000
- MSO Ascend Wellness 25000
- Chicago Atlantic, a major lender to cannabis industry operators, 125,000
- Chicago-based MSO Cresco Labs, $41,875
- Curaleaf Holdings, $241,875, once headquartered in Massachusetts
- Fernway, a Massachusetts-based vape cartridge brand, $112,500
- Minnesota-based Vireo Growth, $125,000
- Chicago-based Verano Holding Corp., $150,000
The cannabis industry also earned support from a separate opposition committee called the Coalition for Responsible Cannabis Policy.
Organized by Diane Goldstein, a retired California police officer and longtime cannabis advocate, the committee’s main funder with $150,000 is Todd Stiefel, a North Carolina activist and philanthropist.
On both sides, most campaign spending was on advertisements, records show.
Why is there no marijuana legalization on the ballot in 2026?
Nationally, the midterm elections bring a rarity to recent American politics: no cannabis legalization voter initiatives on the ballot, in any state.
An adult-use legalization effort in Florida, bankrolled by Tallahassee-based MSO Trulieve Cannabis Corp., failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot amid staunch opposition from that state’s Republican Party, including criminal prosecutions of paid signature gatherers.
However, one state may vote to prohibit future cannabis legalization ballot initiatives.
In Idaho, state lawmakers are pushing House Joint Resolution 4, which if passed would remove from voters the power to legalize drugs via voter initiative.
