US State Ballot Initiative To Repeal Marijuana Legalization Qualifies For November Vote

A campaign to reverse Massachusetts' marijuana legalization law has qualified for the November ballot after state election officials certified enough signatures, just barely.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth's Elections Division told organizers Thursday that a second round of petitioning cleared the threshold. Massachusetts requires two signature waves, with lawmakers getting a chance to act between them. The legislature declined to take up the measure in May, so organizers needed 12,429 additional certified signatures by July 1 to make the ballot.

Elections Division official Michelle K. Tassinar wrote to a signer that \"12,551 certified signatures of the 12,889 received by this Office on or before July 1, 2026, have been allowed,\" with the rest rejected for lacking certification, conflicting with state law, or exceeding county limits. \"Therefore, the initiative petition will be printed on the November 3, 2026 state election ballot as required by the Constitution,\" she wrote.

The measure would end regulated commercial marijuana sales and home cultivation while keeping personal possession legal and preserving the medical marijuana system. Business leaders, healthcare professionals and other advocates have formed a coalition to defeat it.

The rollback campaign, Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, fired a signature gatherer in June after video showed him urging legalization supporters to sign the petition so they could later vote it down. The same canvasser was also collecting signatures for a similar measure in Maine. In a video posted to Reddit, he tells a voter: \"This is what we're fighting against right here. That's why we vote no. If we can get this to the ballot right here, we vote no.\" The coalition said it has \"zero tolerance for any circulation tactics that would mislead petition signers\" and that the canvasser was \"immediately terminated, in coordination with our vendor.\"

The Maine measure would similarly repeal regulated adult-use sales and home cultivation while keeping possession legal and adding new medical marijuana testing requirements. A staffer for Smart Approaches to Marijuana, whose SAM Action arm finances both states' rollback campaigns, declined to comment.

Massachusetts voters previously reported canvassers using fake cover letters tied to unrelated ballot questions, including affordable housing. The State Ballot Law Commission rejected a formal complaint over the tactics, and the Supreme Judicial Court rejected a lawsuit from cannabis industry operatives arguing the measure covered \"impermissibly unrelated subjects.\"

Read state officials' letter on certification of the anti-marijuana ballot initiative: