‘Nonsensical’: Pro-marijuana group sues DeSantis administration, again

By Admin / October 31, 2025

Credit: Shutterstock

The group behind a statewide push to legalize recreational marijuana filed suit against the DeSantis administration Friday for allegedly slow-walking the process to put its proposed amendment on the Florida ballot.

Smart & Safe Florida is hoping the Florida Supreme Court will force the Secretary of State and Director of the Division of Elections to complete the next step in the amendment process: issuing a letter acknowledging that Smart & Safe has enough support for the marijuana amendment to advance.

This is its second lawsuit this month against the election officials.

“It is nonsensical, and contrary to the express constitutional and statutory mandates, to allow the Secretary and Director to indefinitely refuse to issue the…Letter and frustrate the constitutional order,” wrote Tallahassee attorney Glenn Burhans, Jr. in his 25-page request for a writ of mandamus.

He pointed out that Smart & Safe has secured more than three times the number of verified petitions (over 660,000) needed to make it to the ballot, and in August asked Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews to issue a letter to the Florida Attorney General confirming that the group has enough verified forms to continue.

But three months later, in an unusual move, the department still hasn’t issued the required letter. This throws the fate of the proposed amendment into a dubious light due to a state law requiring the Florida Supreme Court to sign off on the amendment before April 1, for clarity’s sake. The court can’t do that if Byrd doesn’t submit his letter to the AG, who then can’t ask the court to offer an opinion.

Byrd’s office declined to comment on “pending litigation” to the Phoenix.

‘Withholding the letter’

DeSantis and his allies, including DeSantis-appointed Byrd, have been vehemently opposed to legalizing recreational marijuana in Florida. During the 2024 cycle when Smart & Safe first attempted to legalize the drug with Amendment 3, DeSantis encouraged a multi-million dollar campaign against the proposal.

Alongside his wife, First Lady Casey DeSantis, the two toured the state decrying the drug’s smell and insisting big corporations were trying to write themselves into the constitution. Attorney General James Uthmeier, the governor’s former chief of staff, has come under fire after his political committee to defeat the amendment received millions that originated from a Medicaid settlement doled out to Casey DeSantis’ charity, Hope Florida.

Separate grand juries are now allegedly investigating the DeSantis administration’s role in defeating the 2024 measure and Hope Florida’s shadowy financials.

In his petition, Burhans suggested that Byrd and Matthews may be purposely roadblocking the marijuana amendment by attempting to stall out Smart & Safe’s proposal by both waiting out the clock and ordering county supervisors on Oct. 3 to trash as many as 200,000 signatures — nearly one-quarter of what’s needed to qualify for next year’s ballot — because organizers failed to provide the entire amendment to people it reached out to by mail.

This allegedly “unlawful” move was the basis of Smart & Safe’s Oct. 19 suit against the administration in Circuit Court. Now it’s saying this is part of a larger push to smother the amendment before it gets to the ballot.

“Respondents appear to be withholding the…Letter on the hopes that the county supervisors’ compliance with the Secretary’s Directive might result in the Petition falling below the statutory threshold,” Burhans wrote. “There is no source of law that grants Respondents this authority.”

This is Smart & Safe’s second attempt to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida. Although its amendment received 56% support in 2024 among Floridians, it wasn’t enough to reach the 60% threshold needed to amend the state constitution.

“The Director did not respond to Smart & Safe’s August 12 letter requesting issuance of the…Letter or explain why the letter had not been issued,” the petition says. “As of the date of this filing…Smart & Safe’s Petition has met the threshold for issuance of the…Letter. The Respondents must therefore be compelled to perform their indisputable legal duty.”

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: [email protected]. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

Source link