Massachusetts Votes Nov. 3 on Ending Legal Cannabis Sales. The Latest Poll Has Repeal at 21%.

Only 21% of likely Massachusetts voters back Question 8, the Nov. 3 measure that would end legal adult-use cannabis sales, in a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll taken Oct. 14 to 18. Seventy-one percent oppose it.

A UMass Amherst/WCVB poll taken the week before found 31% support and 61% opposition. Repeal hasn't topped 33% in any of the six public polls released this year. The campaign behind it has raised $3.8 million, nearly all from one Virginia nonprofit, and it's the only measure on any 2026 ballot that would roll back an existing adult-use market.

What a Yes vote does

Question 8 is titled "Prohibit Retail Sale of Adult Recreational Use Marijuana." It would repeal two chapters of state law: Chapter 94G, which licenses and regulates adult-use cannabis businesses, and Chapter 64N, which taxes their sales. Voters created both in 2016, when legalization passed with about 54% of the vote.

Under the official summary, a Yes vote would:

• End licensed retail sales of adult-use cannabis on Jan. 1, 2028.
• Let adults 21 and older possess up to 1 ounce, with no more than 5 grams as concentrate, and give that amount to another adult.
• Make possession of 1 to 2 ounces a civil offense with a $100 fine and forfeiture.
• Make possession of up to 2 ounces by people under 21 a civil infraction with a $100 fine, a drug awareness program, community service and notice to parents of those under 18.
• Keep the medical marijuana program and keep the Cannabis Control Commission, which would regulate only the medical market.

A No vote changes nothing.

The possession limit would shrink. Gov. Maura Healey signed a law in April that doubled the adult limit for buying, carrying and gifting from 1 ounce to 2. Question 8 would set it back to 1.

Home growing would end for adult-use purposes. The six-plant allowance lives in Chapter 94G, which the measure repeals. The petition keeps the home cultivation rules in the medical chapter, so medical patients with a state cultivation registration could still grow. One WBUR explainer said adults could keep growing at home, which conflicts with the petition text and with other coverage.

What happens to stores and tax revenue

About 416 retailers and delivery businesses held permission to operate as of November 2025, according to the commission, and about 21,000 people held agent registrations across the adult-use and medical sectors. Estimates of employment range from about 18,000 to the 27,000 jobs the No campaign cites.

Those businesses wouldn't have to close on Election Day. Current law stays in force through 2027. The petition directs the commission to "expedite and streamline" medical licenses for adult-use licensees and lets them sell leftover inventory to medical dispensaries. Nothing in the text guarantees that every store gets a medical license, and the Tufts Center for State Policy Analysis has noted that the state hasn't laid out how a much larger medical market would be licensed. Medical dispensaries sold $225.5 million in 2024, against $1.64 billion in adult-use sales that year.

The tax hit is the part the state quantified. According to the voter guide, adult-use sales raised about $280 million in state revenue and $50 million in local revenue in fiscal 2025. That revenue would stop once sales end. Adult-use purchases carry a 6.25% sales tax, a 10.75% marijuana excise and a local tax of up to 3%. The commission's own release puts fiscal 2025 state revenue at $289 million.

The polls

No demographic group in the MassINC poll gave repeal majority support. Republicans were the most supportive, at 42%, against 21% of Democrats. In the UNH poll, 29% of Republicans and 21% of Democrats backed it. The Boston Globe's editorial board urged a No vote on Oct. 20, the day its poll with Suffolk University came out.

The money

SAM Action Inc., the political arm of Smart Approaches to Marijuana in Alexandria, Va., has given the Yes campaign about $3.73 million, roughly 98.6% of what it raised, in six checks since September 2025. Its most recent was $250,000 on Oct. 14. As a nonprofit, SAM Action doesn't have to name its donors. Massachusetts residents had given the coalition about $1,800.

The No side's money comes mostly from the industry. The largest donors are INSA ($265,000), Ascend Wellness Holdings ($250,000), Vireo Health ($125,000), Evergreen Strategies ($100,000), the Retailers Association of Massachusetts ($100,000), Chicago Atlantic ($125,000) and Verano ($100,000). Curaleaf has given $241,875. A new No committee, the Coalition for Responsible Cannabis Policy, took in $150,000 from Todd Stiefel of Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 5. The repeal campaign has raised more, but the main No committee had about $320,000 more in the bank going into October.

Both sides are on the air. The No on 8 campaign launched digital, streaming and broadcast ads on Sept. 29 built around product testing, ID checks and jobs. The Yes campaign followed in early October with two spots on impaired driving.

Reports filed Oct. 20, covering the first half of October, show both sides spending fast. The Yes committee spent about $927,000 in those two weeks, including about $594,000 on TV and $306,000 on digital ads, and had about $155,000 left on Oct. 15. The main No committee spent about $1.59 million, mostly on media buys, and had about $169,000 left.

What each side argues

The Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, which wrote the Yes argument in the voter guide, says commercial sales went too far, too fast. It points to cannabis in fatal crashes, emergency visits by teenagers with psychiatric conditions, and high-potency concentrates and edibles. Its guide argument claims taxpayers spend $4.50 for every $1 in cannabis tax revenue. That ratio matches a 2018 Colorado study by Colorado Christian University's Centennial Institute, which industry groups criticized as flawed and not peer-reviewed. Kevin Sabet, SAM's president, told New England Public Media his group invested in Question 8 knowing it might not pass.

The No campaign, led by Ryan Dominguez of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition, says repeal would send buyers to the illicit market and to neighboring states, cost jobs and tax revenue, and pull police back into marijuana arrests. It points to falling teen use: CDC data show past-month cannabis use among Massachusetts high school students fell from 26% in 2019 to 12% in 2025.

Healey, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu have all said they'll vote no. The SEIU Massachusetts State Council has also urged a No vote. About 63 state lawmakers, including House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka, have also come out against it. The Cannabis Control Commission takes no position.

How it got to the ballot

The Supreme Judicial Court upheld Attorney General Andrea Campbell's certification on June 12, rejecting a suit by social equity grant recipients who argued the measure bundled unrelated subjects and that her summary was misleading. On July 21, the State Ballot Law Commission rejected a challenge to the campaign's final signatures and ordered the question printed on the ballot, where it became Question 8. It's one of nine statewide questions, the most on a Massachusetts ballot since 1918.

Similar efforts elsewhere stalled. Maine's repeal campaign said in February it hadn't gathered enough signatures to qualify. In Arizona, the lead proponent dropped his effort in May, saying he no longer held the concerns that started it.

For New York readers, this is the first time voters anywhere will decide whether to repeal an adult-use market that's already running, and it's happening in a state that borders New York.

What's coming

• Now through Oct. 30: in-person early voting, which began Oct. 17 in every city and town.
• Oct. 24: the deadline to register to vote.
• Nov. 3: Election Day. A simple majority decides it.
• Jan. 1, 2028: if Question 8 passes, adult-use sales end and the remaining provisions take effect.