Company behind Florida's ballot measure to legalize marijuana is suing the state's Republican Party over “false and misleading” claims made to voters

The lead proponent of a marijuana legalization initiative coming to Florida next month has filed a defamation lawsuit against the state's Republican Party, claiming it knowingly misled voters about a proposed constitutional amendment called Amendment 3.

Trulieve, Florida's largest medical marijuana operator, which has donated more than $90 million to the adult-use campaign, says the GOP ran a “deliberately misleading campaign” with “demonstrably false” claims that “attempts to “to deceive Florida voters” into opposing adult consumption reform.

The lawsuit, the company said in its filing, is an attempt to “set the record straight.”

“Republicans knew that the claims in the misleading mailing and advertisement were false, intentionally misleading and duplicitous,” says the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the state’s Second Judicial Court, “but they published them anyway in order to “To deceive Florida voters into voting against a ballot initiative that would legalize the recreational use of cannabis.”

The lawsuit also names two Florida television stations as defendants, which the company accuses of airing the “false and misleading” commercials.

At the center of the allegations is a television ad from opponents of Amendment 3, which the company says implies that only large corporations like Trulieve would benefit from the proposal. Some criticized the plan, saying it would create a “monopoly” with limited licenses and a ban on home cultivation for personal use.

Trulieve's lawsuit says that's untrue because state lawmakers would have the power to issue more licenses if the measure takes effect. And it is noted that home cultivation of cannabis is already banned in Florida – a matter that is simply not affected by the constitutional amendment.

“Amendment 3 cannot prohibit anything that is already prohibited,” the complaint states, “and the plain language of Amendment 3 says nothing about home cultivation of cannabis and does not change the current legal position regarding this issue.”

Another ad affected by the lawsuit is a campaign mailer from the Republican Party of Florida. It called Amendment 3 “a power grab by mega-marijuana corporations that eliminates their competition and forever enshrines their monopoly advantage in the Constitution.”

Again, Trulieve says this is wrong because lawmakers could issue additional licenses, increasing competition.

“Rather than eliminating competition, the ballot initiative would increase competition by allowing the state to approve additional licenses for the cultivation and sale of cannabis,” the lawsuit states.

Postal voting for the November 5th election has already begun in Florida.

A representative for Trulieve did not immediately respond to Marijuana Moment's request for comment.

According to the Tampa Free Press, Trulieve submitted the following cease-and-desist letters to the television networks, asking them to withdraw the offending ad.

In response to the lawsuit, Florida Republican Party Chairman Evan Power rebuked Trulieve on Wednesday.

“It's so strange that a company that invests nearly $100 million in a political campaign would be so sensitive to honest television advertising,” Power said in a text message to the Miami Herald, the newspaper reported Wednesday. “Proponents of Amendment 3 are trying to remove these ads, which they know to be true and work. That is why they are using the judiciary to silence us, but we are not deterred from our efforts. If this huge, powerful corporation can’t handle it, then they should sit at the little kids’ table.”

Meanwhile, the pro-legalization campaign Smart & Safe Florida released its own ad this week highlighting the fact that both major parties' presidential candidates and their running mate's oppose criminalizing people for cannabis.

The ad, titled “We're All Saying the Same Thing,” comes just days after Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, reiterated her support for marijuana legalization. This followed weeks of silence on the issue after she rose to the top of the list.

Smart & Safe Florida took this opportunity to put together a roundup of clips featuring Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), as well as former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-). . OH) – Express support for reforms.

“Amendment 3 is not about political parties or red vs. blue identities,” campaign spokesman Morgan Hill said in a news release. “Supporting the legalization of adult recreational use of marijuana is about upholding the principles of individual freedom and freedom on which our country was founded.”

While each candidate spoke about their belief that the country should stop criminalizing people for cannabis, there are still some nuances to their individual marijuana positions.

Harris and Walz both support legalization. For example, during her time in the Senate, Harris supported a bill to end federal cannabis prohibition. And Walz enthusiastically signed a bill in Minnesota that would legalize it at the state level. Although he supported federal reform during his time in Congress, he recently said he believes the issue should be left to the states.

Trump, a Florida resident, is the only candidate who has explicitly endorsed Amendment 3, but he has historically taken a states' rights position on legalization overall. He also recently advocated for federal debt restructuring and granted the marijuana industry access to the banking system.

Outside of the presidential campaign, there was a mix of support and opposition for the Florida legalization amendment on both sides of the partisan spectrum.

For example, the former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under then-President Bill Clinton recently urged Florida voters to reject the marijuana legalization initiative, saying it would create a “new addiction-for-profit industry.” would. in the state.

The opposition of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is well established. And last week, the governor was accused of weaponizing a taxpayer-funded ad from a state agency as part of his anti-marijuana campaign.

Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party and the state's former agriculture commissioner, recently endorsed Amendment 3. And the leader also laid out a framework for cannabis regulation that she believes lawmakers should enact if voters approve the reform. This includes automatically expunging prior marijuana convictions, taking measures to reduce the risk of monopolization in the industry, and redirecting tax revenue to Black communities and education.

Meanwhile, two congressional Republicans representing Florida also recently weighed in on the state's marijuana legalization initiative – with Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) predicting failure and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) saying he himself is in This measure is still undecided after former President Donald Trump spoke out in favor of it.

For his part, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has said he plans to vote against it solely because he believes the reform should become law rather than as a constitutional amendment, which would prove more difficult to amend.

On the other hand, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, predicted earlier this year that the measure would pass.

Two Florida Republican and Democratic senators recently teamed up to promote the state's marijuana legalization initiative, appearing together in a new campaign ad as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) continues to protest the measure, claiming it would benefit corporate “weed cartel”.

Sen. Joe Gruters (R), the former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, and Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) stood side by side in the ad for Smart & Safe Florida and admitted that while they “don't see eye to eye.” Although they say “a lot – hardly anything” and would both vote for their respective party's presidential candidate, they “agree on this: Amendment 3 is good for Florida.”

While polls have consistently shown the ballot measure has majority support among both Democrats and Republicans – and even though the 2024 Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, has also endorsed it – Florida's governor has not in his fight to lose gave in to it.

Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers and Gruters, the state's Republican senator, also met with Trump ahead of his approval of Amendment 3, as well as federal debt restructuring and access to industry banks.

Meanwhile, another recent poll from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the cannabis initiative, found that 59 percent of likely voters in the state support Amendment 3.

A separate poll by the James Madison Institute (JMI) found that 64 percent of likely Florida voters support the legalization proposal.

Smart & Safe Florida also released another series of new ads last month — including one denouncing the hypocrisy of criminalizing cannabis while alcohol is legally available, and another calling for a county sheriff to repeal marijuana prohibition pleads.

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