Florida Supreme Court Strikes Down 2022 Ballot Initiative to Legalize Recreational Marijuana

Florida Supreme Court Strikes Down 2022 Ballot Initiative to Legalize Recreational Marijuana

An effort to get marijuana legalization on the ballot in Florida's 2022 election cycle was squashed by the state's Supreme Court on Thursday.In a 5-to-2 ruling, the justices declared that the constitutional ballot initiative was "misleading" because the drug would still be illegal at the federal level."A constitutional amendment cannot unequivocally 'permit' or authorize conduct that is criminalized under federal law. And a ballot summary suggesting otherwise is affirmatively misleading," the court wrote.Justices Allen Lawson and Jorge Labarga dissented."Today's decision underestimates Florida voters," Lawson wrote in his opinion, "and adds hurdles to the citizen-initiative process that are not supported by the plain language of the governing law or our precedent."Lawson also argued that "there is the practical matter of not knowing how federal law will change in the years between the drafting of any ballot summary and a vote on the amendment." The House of Representatives passed a bill in December to legalize marijuana at the federal level.The Florida Supreme Court took up the case after the state's attorney general, Ashley Moody, a Republican, requested an advisory opinion on whether the marijuana initiative was valid. "We thank the Florida Supreme Court for their time and attention to this issue and