{"id":85941,"date":"2026-05-06T11:36:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/florida-republican-governor-candidates-are-united-in-opposing-marijuana-legalization\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T19:45:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T03:45:57","slug":"florida-republican-governor-candidates-are-united-in-opposing-marijuana-legalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/florida-republican-governor-candidates-are-united-in-opposing-marijuana-legalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Republican Governor Candidates Are United In Opposing Marijuana Legalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not support recreational marijuana. I think the current regulatory system around medicinal use is fine.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix<\/strong><\/p>\n

The issue of whether Florida should legalize recreational cannabis<\/a> went away as a significant campaign issue earlier this year after Smart & Safe Florida, the organization behind an initiative to put it back before voters this November, fell short of the nearly 880,000 verified petition signatures required to qualify for the statewide ballot.<\/p>\n

That failure came a year-and-a-half after nearly 56 percent of Floridians voted to legalize adult use of recreational marijuana on the November 2024 ballot, a clear majority but short of the 60 percent required for passage.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s not something voters will\u00a0 decide this year, Floridians might want to know where their candidates for statewide office stand.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a\u00a0\u201cBusiness Women for Byron\u201d\u00a0campaign event Tuesday at the Getaway, a waterfront restaurant and Tiki bar in St. Petersburg, the first question asked by an audience member to GOP gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds was his position on the topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not support recreational marijuana,\u201d Donalds replied. \u201cI think the current regulatory system around medicinal use is fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donalds has previously acknowledged that he was arrested for possessing \u201ca dime bag of marijuana\u201d as a teenager, and admitted to\u00a0CBS Miami\u00a0recently that he actually had sold small amounts of cannabis as a youth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He now says that he doesn\u2019t support expanding the legal use of weed beyond the 924,820 Floridians listed as qualified medical marijuana patients, according to the state\u00a0Office of Medical Marijuana Use.<\/p>\n

Acceptance On Medical, But Never For Recreational<\/h4>\n

The other Republicans running for governor share Donalds\u2019s sentiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI oppose recreational marijuana in Florida,\u201d investment firm CEO James Fishback told the Phoenix in a text message. \u201cI have seen what it has done to cities that have already tried it, from New York to Chicago to Washington D.C. The foul stench of pot in public parks and outside our schools can never come to Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Fishback says he will always protect the right of those \u201cwith a legitimate medical purpose, including our U.S. military veterans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one should be denied herbal medicine and pushed toward addictive big pharma prescriptions for pain,\u201d he said. \u201cAs Governor, I will protect medical marijuana. But I won\u2019t tolerate hoodlums smoking pot in a public park, just as we already don\u2019t tolerate them drinking in one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been clear from day one. I am completely against legalizing marijuana,\u201d Lt. Gov Jay Collins said in a video posted on\u00a0social media\u00a0on April 26. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the impact in other states, and that\u2019s not where Florida is headed.\u00a0\u00a0I stand with Governor DeSantis on this. No compromises, and no money from the marijuana industry. That can\u2019t be said for all of my opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI\u2019m against full blown recreational marijuana,\u201d former House Speaker Paul Renner said Wednesday during a roundtable discussion of high energy prices in Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have medical. It was put in the Constitution [in 2016]. If people want to get it, they can get it. And we opened that up to the extent where it needs to be, but I\u2019m opposed to recreational. Period. If it came back on the ballot, I would campaign against it like Gov. DeSantis did.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeSantis announced in June 2024\u00a0that he would use a political action committee to fight the constitutional amendment on recreational marijuana, saying he could not believe that the Florida Supreme Court allowed the language of the measure to qualify for that November\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n

He later used tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to campaign against both that proposal and another measure that would have enshrined abortion rights in Florida, according to a report by\u00a0the Tampa Bay Times.<\/p>\n

Where Are The Democrats?<\/h4>\n

The Phoenix reached out to the two major Democrats running for governor this year: former GOP U.S. Rep. David Jolly and Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the governor\u2019s role is to represent the majority of the state, and the majority of the state asked for it, and I think that we should do it,\u201d Jolly told the Phoenix in a phone call Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Pinellas County Democrat says he actually voted against Amendment 3 in 2024, the one calling for legalizing adult use of recreational marijuana.<\/p>\n

But since he announced his candidacy last year, Jolly has emphasized that he would work to implement all recent constitutional amendments that have been passed by a majority of Floridians but failed to get the high 60 percent margin required for passage.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>Recreational marijuana got more than 50 percent of the vote in the constitutional amendment process and I pledged to support the enactment and introduce legislatively any amendment that got more than 50 percent of the vote. That includes open primaries, recreational marijuana, and Amendment 4 on reproductive freedom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The only major gubernatorial candidate whose stance the Phoenix was unable to clarify was Demings. While serving as the police chief for the city of Orlando in the 2010s, Demings opposed the constitutional amendments that would have legalized medical marijuana in both\u00a02014<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a02016.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Phoenix reached out by phone and by email to the Demings campaign for two days this week but did not receive a response. Calls to the phone number listed on the most recent press release from the Demings campaign were answered by a recording saying that the person with the number had not set up a voice mail system.<\/p>\n

President Trump Endorsed Amendment 3<\/h4>\n

One prominent Florida Republican who supported Amendment 3 in 2024 was President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I have previously stated, I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use. We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults, to safe, tested product,\u201d Trump posted on\u00a0Truth Social\u00a0in September 2024. \u201cAs a Floridian, I will be voting YES on Amendment 3 this November.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that post, the president promised that if elected back to the White House he would work towards changing marijuana from a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act to a Schedule III drug\u2014which he did in December in an executive order.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice\u00a0announced last month that it would immediately move FDA-approved marijuana products, along with items regulated by a state medical marijuana license, to Schedule III. That puts medical cannabis into the group of regulated drugs with recognized medical uses, such as Tylenol, rather than Schedule I drugs, like heroin and LSD, which are considered to have no medical use and have a high potential for abuse.<\/p>\n

This story was first published by Florida Phoenix.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Florida Republican Governor Candidates Are United In Opposing Marijuana Legalization<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\u201cI do not support recreational marijuana. I think the current regulatory system around medicinal use is fine.\u201d By Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix The issue of whether Florida should legalize recreational cannabis went away as a significant campaign issue earlier this year after Smart & Safe Florida, the organization behind anContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85942,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85941\/revisions\/85942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}