Florida's Legalization Push Fell 96,470 Signatures Short. Now It Starts Over for 2028.

Florida's adult-use cannabis amendment finished 96,470 valid signatures short of the 880,062 it needed, so voters won't see it on the November 2026 ballot.

The state's final count gave Smart & Safe Florida 783,592 valid signatures at the February 1 deadline. Courts let the state throw out about 70,600 more, and the Florida Supreme Court declined to step in. Every signature from the 2026 drive has now expired, and three committees, including Smart & Safe, are starting over for 2028.

How the count came up short

Florida requires a citizen initiative to collect valid signatures equal to 8% of the votes cast in the last presidential election. For the 2026 and 2028 cycles that's 880,062, plus minimum counts in congressional districts. Passing on Election Day takes 60% of the vote.

Smart & Safe Florida, the committee behind the 2024 measure, filed a revised version in January 2025. It would let adults 21 and older possess up to 2 ounces of cannabis or 5 grams of concentrate, and it added a ban on smoking and vaping in public places. The campaign says it turned in more than 1.4 million signatures.

The state removed large blocks of them in three rounds:

• About 200,000 petitions that didn't include the full amendment text, a requirement in the 2025 law. A Leon County judge upheld that in November 2025, and the campaign chose not to appeal.
• 41,894 petitions signed by voters listed as "inactive," meaning election mail to them had come back undeliverable and their address wasn't confirmed.
• 28,752 petitions collected by circulators who weren't Florida residents or U.S. citizens. The campaign used them during a roughly two-month window when a federal judge had blocked that part of the law.

The public tally moved in steps. The Division of Elections website showed 675,307 valid signatures from late November until January 22, after the campaign sued over the missing weekly updates. It then rose to 714,888, 760,002 and, on deadline day, 783,592. Subtracting that from 880,062 leaves the 96,470 gap.

The campaign disputes that total. County election supervisors' own websites showed more than 833,000 validated signatures, over 54,000 more than the state credited, according to a Cannabis Business Times review, and the campaign argues the inactive-voter rule blocks petitions from people who could still cast a ballot on the measure. The state's position is that the directives protect the process from fraud and that the count stood at the deadline.

The court fight

Smart & Safe sued over the inactive-voter and out-of-state directives. On January 15, Leon County Circuit Judge Jonathan Sjostrom split the case, ruling the inactive-voter directive unlawful but upholding the out-of-state one.

On January 23, a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal reversed him on inactive voters and sided with Secretary of State Cord Byrd on both directives. Judge Lori Rowe wrote the opinion. The campaign asked the full appeals court to rehear the case, then dropped that request and sought Florida Supreme Court review; the appeals court sent the case up on February 16.

The state argued the case was moot because the deadline had passed and all petitions dated on or before February 1 had expired. On March 9, the Supreme Court declined to hear it, in a short order that said "no motion for rehearing will be entertained." That ended the 2026 effort.

The Supreme Court had already closed the other track. Its review of the ballot wording, which Attorney General James Uthmeier had challenged as misleading, was dismissed on February 4 after the state said the measure lacked enough signatures.

The fraud investigations

State officials have treated the petition drive as a fraud case as well as a counting dispute. In early 2025, the Department of State fined Smart & Safe $121,850, saying it delivered 2,437 petitions from the 2024 drive past the 30-day legal deadline and pointing to forged or duplicate forms. The campaign disputed the findings and said it would challenge them.

In January 2026, Uthmeier's office announced 46 new criminal investigations and four subpoenas to Smart & Safe and its contractors. It said about 50 circulators had turned in more than 21,600 petitions, more than 14,500 of which election officials rejected, and that nine circulators had been arrested or charged by warrant. The attorney general accused the campaign of knowing about the fraud and not reporting it. Smart & Safe has denied the fraud allegations. We found no reports of charges against the committee itself as of mid-October.

The federal lawsuit over HB 1205

HB 1205, signed in May 2025, requires anyone who collects more than 25 non-family petitions to register with the state, bars non-residents and non-citizens from gathering signatures, and requires petitions to carry the full amendment text. Republican supporters say it prevents fraud. Opponents, including House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, say it shuts citizens out of the process.

Florida Decides Healthcare, which is pursuing Medicaid expansion, and other groups challenged the law in federal court. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blocked the circulator ban in July 2025, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed that order in September. After a two-week trial that ended in February, Walker upheld most of the law on April 30, 2026, finding that some plaintiffs lacked standing and that the Legislature had the power to pass the rules. Florida Decides Healthcare appealed to the 11th Circuit on June 1, and the state filed its response brief on October 13.

Money and polling

Trulieve, Florida's largest medical cannabis operator, has been Smart & Safe's primary funder. It put more than $145 million into the 2024 campaign. State campaign finance reports show more than $32.4 million from Trulieve in 2025, and Cannabis Business Times put its total for the 2026 attempt at $67 million.

Polls before the 2024 vote showed support as high as 67%, but Amendment 3 drew about 56% at the polls. A Florida Chamber of Commerce poll of 600 likely voters in February 2025 found 53% support for legalization. We found no published statewide poll on any 2028 measure.

The medical market in the meantime

Medical use stays legal under the 2016 constitutional amendment, run by vertically integrated treatment centers. The Office of Medical Marijuana Use counted 942,952 patients with active ID cards on October 16, up from 931,959 in mid-January. Any 2028 measure would decide whether those same companies get first access to an adult-use market.

What's coming

Three adult-use petitions are now listed for the November 2028 ballot:

• Smart & Safe Florida (25-01): still active, but the state lists six valid signatures after the 2026 petitions expired.
• Floridians for Marijuana (26-01): approved September 30. It would let medical treatment centers sell to adults at dispensaries open as of January 1, 2025, and later-approved sites, and create new licenses that don't require vertical integration. Its text matches Smart & Safe's word for word.
• Let Florida Vote IV (26-03): pending financial review as of September 29. It shares a chair with Floridians for Marijuana and would let treatment centers sell at dispensaries approved as of the election and require licenses for any qualified applicant.

Each needs 220,016 valid signatures to trigger Supreme Court and financial review, and 880,062 by February 1, 2028, to make the ballot. All of them will be collected under HB 1205's rules. Reporting through early October hadn't described a new Smart & Safe signature drive, and the challengers' appeal of the April federal ruling is pending at the 11th Circuit.