(Bloomberg) — Florida voters rejected a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana, dealing a blow to the cannabis industry and a giving a big win to the leading opponents: Governor Ron DeSantis and the billionaire financier of his anti-weed campaign, Ken Griffin.
The measure, known as Amendment 3, got 55.9% support — or almost 6 million votes — with 44.1% opposed with 99% of the vote counted, according the Associated Press. But that failed to clear the 60% threshold for approval required by Florida law.
Legalizing recreational marijuana for Florida’s 23 million residents — plus millions of tourists annually — would have been a huge win for the cannabis industry, especially Trulieve Cannabis Corp. The Quincy, Florida-based company contributed about $145 million to the campaign and forecast that as many as 2.7 million people would have moved into the legal weed market.
With Florida on board, about 60% of the US population would have had access to recreational weed, which advocates said would have made national legalization more likely. The cannabis industry invested hundreds of millions of dollars on expanding weed farms, processing plants and dispensary networks in Florida ahead of the vote, betting on soaring demand and profit from legalization.
The massive influx of cash wasn’t enough to offset efforts by DeSantis to defeat the measure. The Republican governor went on a crusade against it, diverting millions in state funds to the effort. He and his wife, Casey, held news conferences with law enforcement officials where they decried the smell of marijuana and what they said was the drug’s potential to increase crime.
The governor’s campaign went beyond weed, said Nick Iarossi, a Tallahassee lobbyist and longtime DeSantis fundraiser and supporter. Fighting legal weed was the centerpiece of DeSantis’ push to bolster his political mandate in Florida after Donald Trump crushed his run for president early this year.
“A lot of people were saying he was in the sunset of his career, but this shows that’s not the case,” Iarossi said in an interview.
The governor found an ally in Griffin, the finance titan and transplant from Chicago. Griffin donated $12 million to the anti-pot cause and was the only large individual donor. All told, DeSantis and anti-weed advocates drummed up $26 million to fight the measure.
The fight over recreational marijuana created some odd bedfellows. Donald Trump, a Florida resident, said he would be voting yes and his ally Roger Stone advocated for the measure. John Morgan, a celebrity personal injury lawyer and longtime Democratic donor, created an alter-ego to promote marijuana in Florida, branding himself as “Pot Daddy.”