FOLIO
Words by Shelton Hull
We’re only two months into the year, and we’re already off to a very fast start in the state’s cannabis industry. Despite the debacle that was Amendment 3 last year, the biz has bounced back pretty nicely from that national humiliation. According to the research firm Headset (which we’ll be talking a lot more about in the months ahead), Florida dispensaries sold approximately $160,654,639 in cannabis in January 2025 alone, the highest sales figures since May 2024. This is pleasantly surprising news for industry analysts (including myself, to be fair) who were expecting a mild chilling effect from last year’s failed effort to legalize. It turns out that the real chill already happened last year, and the optimists win this round.
Speaking of Amendment 3, its narrow failure left a bad taste in many people’s mouths, especially mine. I was frozen out of the process by most of the key players, and I think the results speak for themselves. When I heard reports that organizers had already begun the petition process for 2026, I was initially skeptical, as I’m sure many of you were, as well. I’ve watched this same process play out over the past three electoral cycles, going back to the disastrous initial rollout in 2020, which we covered extensively here.
Given the way things have started out in this first month of the new administration, it seems likely that voter turnout in 2026 will be significantly higher than usual for midterm elections. I’d expect the turnout in Florida to be even higher than the national average in November 2026, with an open seat for the governorship, basically an open seat for the Senate position left by Marco Rubio, and of course all the congressional and state legislative seats, in addition to school board spots. And by that point, we should also be in full swing for the local elections that will happen just six months after that. (Deegan’s defense of her title will be the most interesting contest to happen anywhere in this country between now and 2028, even though no one has formally committed to the challenge yet. That will happen next summer.)
While advocates for legalization have managed to do a little better each time, it’s always been a matter of how we measure degrees of failure. At first, I was inclined to just ignore this new effort until it was impossible to ignore. That moment, for me, came just a few days ago, when me and my family and many of my friends, all over the state, all got petitions in the mail from Smart & Safe Florida, which also ran last year’s efforts. Good for them for getting ahead of this, and taking advantage of all the unusually intense focus on politics that many in this state and every state are feeling right now.
Placing a constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot requires getting a number of signed and certified petitions equal to 8% of the number of votes cast here in the last presidential election. We had 11,004,209 votes last year (66.7% turnout), which means that we’ll need at least 881,000 signed petitions submitted by Jan. 2, 2026, in order to give the state the 30 days legally required to certify them by Feb. 2. Election day in 2026 is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Given the relative ease with which Amendment 3 made the ballot last year (967,528 signatures certified), they should hit all the necessary marks well ahead of schedule.
This leaves more time, and resources, to really drill down on engaging voters directly and not losing the public relations battle to DeSantis, who will be making his last stand as governor next year, all while possibly helping to manage his wife Casey’s own campaign to succeed him Makes perfect sense. They’d save six figures, just in moving costs.) Dare I say it, but legalization in Florida should be a lock by 2027 — but I said that last year, too!
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