Marijuana Moment: Nearly Half Of Massachusetts Voters Who Signed Anti-Marijuana Initiative Petitions Feel Misled By Campaign Workers, Poll Finds

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Nearly half of Massachusetts voters who signed a petition to put a marijuana legalization rollback initiative on the ballot say they were misled by the anti-cannabis campaign’s signature collectors, according to a new poll.

The survey involved more than 2,300 residents who signed the petition for the measure backed by the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts. It found that 1,163 voters said they would not have supported its ballot placement had they known it would repeal key parts of the state’s cannabis law allowing commercial sales.

Massachusetts officials are already reviewing complaints about allegedly deceptive signature gathering tactics for the initiative, which the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Elections Division certified for the ballot last month after the campaign turned in a sufficient number of petitions.

This latest poll, spearheaded by the pro-legalization Committee to Protect Cannabis Regulation, adds to suspicions that petitioners working on behalf of the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts were either deliberately misleading voters or failing to disclose the initiative’s intent.

It showed that numerous voters were under the impression that the initiative petition they signed was meant to tackle non-marijuana issues such as public education, mitigating the fentanyl crisis and expanding housing opportunities, for example.

Of the respondents, 601 said they meant to sign the petition in order to put marijuana sales repeal on the ballot, while another 153 didn’t know they were signing an anti-cannabis measure but would have done so anyways had they known that was its intent.

The coalition has denied any wrongdoing in the signature collection process and waved off the survey results.

“We never intended or encouraged or in any way made signature gatherers feel like they should lie about what they were getting signed,” Wendy Wakeman, a spokesperson for the coalition, told The Boston Globe. “You’ve got crybabies who are making millions of dollars off of this marijuana business who are complaining that they’re not being treated fairly. And in fact, they are.”

The campaign’s counsel, Patrick Strawbridge, similarly accused the pro-cannabis committee behind the poll of relying on “anonymous survey data” to produce “misleading” results.

“Even if one pretended that the survey contacted actual signers … the number of individuals who claim they were misled or were not told what they were signing still falls well short of the number required to disqualify the petition,” Strawbridge said.

The survey was released after the state Ballot Law Commission received a request to dismiss a case challenging the anti-marijuana campaign’s signature gathering tactics. That body will soon be issuing a ruling on the complaint, as both parties have mutually agreed to expedite the process by waving their right to hold a hearing that was originally scheduled for last Friday.

The state last month certified 78,301 signatures for the petition, titled “An Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy.”

The initiative would still let adults 21 and older possess and gift up to an ounce of cannabis, but it would repeal provisions of the voter-approved legalization law allowing for commercial sales and home cultivation by adults. The medical cannabis program would remain intact under the measure.

An association of state marijuana businesses had separately urged voters to report to local officials if they observe any instances of “fraudulent message” or other deceitful petitioning tactics.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s (D) office—which cleared the campaign for signature gathering in September—has stressed to voters the importance of reading their summary, which is required to go at the top of the signature form, before signing any petitions.

The Massachusetts legislature received the initiative for consideration earlier this month when the 2026 session kicked off. Unless it’s invalidated, lawmakers have until May 5 to act on the proposal. If they choose not to enact it legislatively, the campaign would need to go through another round of petitioning and get at least 12,429 certified signatures by July 1 to make the November ballot.

Meanwhile, the head of Massachusetts’s marijuana regulatory agency recently suggested that the measure to effectively recriminalize recreational cannabis sales could imperil tax revenue that’s being used to support substance misuse treatment efforts and other public programs.

To that point, Massachusetts reached a marijuana sales milestone in 2025—with $1.65 billion in adult-use sales for the year, bringing the state’s total legal cannabis purchases to over $10 billion since the recreational market launched.

Whether the cannabis measures make the cut is yet to be seen. Voters approved legalization at the ballot in 2016, with sales launching two years later. And the past decade has seen the market evolve and expand. As of August, Massachusetts officials reported more than $8 billion in adult-use marijuana sales.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts lawmakers recently assembled a bicameral conference committee to reach a deal on a bill that would double the legal marijuana possession limit for adults and revise the regulatory framework for the state’s adult-use cannabis market.

Last month, state regulators also finalized rules for marijuana social consumption loungues.

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Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

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The state Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) recently launched an online platform aimed at helping people find jobs, workplace training and networking opportunities in the state’s legal cannabis industry.

State lawmakers have also been considering setting tighter restrictions on intoxicating hemp-derived products and a plan to allow individual entities to control a larger number of cannabis establishments.

Also in Massachusetts, legislators who were working on a state budget butted heads with CCC officials, who’ve said they can’t make critical technology improvements without more money from the legislature.

Massachusetts lawmakers additionally approved a bill to establish a pilot program for the regulated therapeutic use of psychedelics. And two committees have separately held hearings to discuss additional psilocybin-related measures.

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

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