Marijuana repeal ballot question to go before voters this November, after last-ditch challenge fails

Politics admin July 21, 2026 0 Comments

Marijuana repeal ballot question to go before voters this November, after last-ditch challenge fails

A ballot question to repeal recreational marijuana will appear before voters along with eight others in November, state election officials said Tuesday, as they rejected a final push from the marijuana industry to invalidate the anti-pot petition.

The State Ballot Law Commission ruled that a challenge by marijuana entrepreneur groups had “not met [the] burden of proof to disqualify enough signatures,” and oust the question.

The measure, which aims to repeal state laws legalizing, regulating, and taxing cannabis, will be printed as Question 8 on the Nov. 3 ballot, Galvin’s office said.

“This is a victory not just for our coalition, but for every Massachusetts voter who believes citizens, not political gamesmanship, should decide important public policy questions,” said Wendy Wakeman, spokesperson for Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, the group behind the question.

Stop the Repeal, an industry backed opposition campaign that led the challenge, would have needed to invalidate at least 123 signatures to overturn certification of the question, according to the commission’s ruling.

In a statement, campaign chair Ryan Dominguez said he was disappointed, by the decision, but said opponents “will redouble our efforts to make sure we stop this ill-advised repeal.”

According to the commission, the challengers had identified roughly 450 signatures as invalid for a variety of reasons,including illegible handwriting, missing street addresses, and signature fraud.

Of these, 231 signatures were challenged for appearing on petition sheets containing “stray marks.”

In their ruling, the commission agreed to invalidate just four signatures with missing or incorrect addresses, but ruled against various other claims citing a lack of “substantial evidence,” or that issues in question did not undermine “underlying constitutional principles.”

The supporters of the ballot question also agreed that another six signatures should not have been certified, according to the ruling.

Jennifer Naso, a forensic handwriting expert, who testified on behalf of the challengers, said it was “inconclusive” whether certain signatures were signed by the same person, the ruling said. She was not familiar with the process local election officials use for signature certification, she said.

Kevin Sabet, president of the Virginia-based anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana cheered Tuesday’s decision and called on voters to “end addiction for profit in Massachusetts,” in a press release.

Sabet’s group bankrolled the Massachusetts repeal effort with $1.5 million last year, and continues to support the campaign in the lead up to the election, he told the Globe last month.

This is the second challenge that the repeal question has survived before the ballot law commission.

In January, the commission ruled marijuana industry supporters failed to prove allegations that the ballot campaign “obtained signatures fraudulently,” following months of online reports that people had been misled into signing the petition.

The state’s high court also rebuffed a lawsuit filed by marijuanagroups challenging the certification and summarization of the question by Attorney General Andrea Campbell last month.