Marijuana Moment: Massachusetts Marijuana Businesses File Lawsuit To Keep Legalization Rollback Measure Off Ballot

2026-04-02T17:08:58Z

Massachusetts marijuana businesses have filed a lawsuit aiming to block an initiative to roll back the state’s voter-approved legalization law from reaching the November ballot.

The proposal to repeal laws allowing legal recreational cannabis sales violates the state Constitution by containing “impermissibly unrelated subjects,” and the state attorney general’s official summary is “misleading and deficient,” according to the complaint filed on Tuesday before the state’s Supreme Judicial Court.

The measure also proposes “an unconstitutional regulatory taking” by “destroy[ing] the reasonable, investment-backed expectations of affected businesses and individuals and would eliminate the livelihoods of thousands of Massachusetts residents,” the suit, brought by participants in the state’s Cannabis Social Equity Program, says.

The plaintiffs—Stem Haverhill owner Caroline Pineau, Treevit LLC CEO Gyasi Sellers and Paper 4 Crane Provisions majority owners Lisa Mauriello and Boey Bertold—want the court to declare the initiative invalid, hold that Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D) erred in her summary and certification of the measure and enjoin Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin (D) from putting it on the ballot.

The initiative violates the law by combining “several unrelated and independent subjects, including criminal justice changes, elimination of the Social Equity Program, removal of local control over marijuana establishments by municipalities, elimination of professional discipline protections, elimination of public consumption and open container protections, and the dismantling of regulatory safeguards applicable to the medical marijuana industry,” the suit says.

“Because of the multiple unrelated provisions contained in the Petition, Massachusetts voters will be placed in the untenable position of being unable to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on it as a unified statement of public policy. For example, a voter who wishes to repeal adult-use marijuana but retain the Social Equity Program or preserve access to legal services for the medical marijuana industry cannot reasonably cast a vote that reflects those preferences. Likewise, a voter who wishes to repeal adult-use marijuana but does not want to eliminate the statewide ban on public consumption of marijuana is forced to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the entire package.”

“These scenarios, among others, would force voters to accept provisions they oppose in order to secure provisions they support,” the plaintiffs, who are represented by Vicente LLP, argue, calling the ballot measure “a classic example of logrolling.”

While the proponents of the initiative titled it “An Act to Restore Sensible Marijuana Policy,” it amounts to “an incoherent combination of repeal of adult-use marijuana, elimination of protections for professionals, dismantling of social equity initiatives, elimination of public safety protections, and purported measures relating to youth, among other things,” the filing says.

That claim is bolstered, the plaintiffs say, by numerous reports of voters who say they were misled by petitioners while being asked to sign ballot petitions.

“The Petition at issue proposes a measure entitled ‘An Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy,’ which, if approved, would impose a hodgepodge of changes to Massachusetts law that are related to one another only by the proponents’ vague and highly subjective assertion that, together, they constitute a ‘sensible marijuana policy.'”

The suit also argues that the attorney general’s summary of the measure “fails to inform” voters about the true impact of the initiative, rendering it “neither fair nor concise” in violation of the law.

“Massachusetts voters have consistently driven the advancement of marijuana policy in the Commonwealth, often acting in the face of legislative inaction,” the filing says, noting the passage of ballot measures to decriminalize marijuana possession and to legalize medical and recreational cannabis.

Wendy Wakeman, a spokesperson for the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, which is behind the initiative, told The Boston Globe that she finds it “surprising that this group is so opposed to asking the voters what they think of legalized marijuana” by allowing the new measure to go to the ballot.

If passed, the state wouldn’t revert back to blanket prohibition; rather, it would repeal the commercial recreational sales and personal home cultivation components of the law while still allowing adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of cannabis for personal use.

Possession of more than one ounce but less than two ounces would be effectively decriminalized, with violators subject to a $100 fine. Adults could also continue to gift cannabis between each other without remuneration. Medical marijuana sales would remain legal.

The measure is currently before the legislature after supporters turned in an initial batch of signatures last year, and 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.

Proponents faced skeptical questioning from lawmakers at a hearing of the Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions last month, with several raising concerns about the motivations behind the anti-marijuana measure and its implications for consumers and businesses.

A recent Bay State Poll from the University of Hampshire’s States of Opinion Project found that a majority of Massachusetts adults oppose the marijuana sales and cultivation repeal initiative.

The survey came months after cannabis activists filed a complaint with the State Ballot Law Commission, alleging that petitioners with the anti-cannabis campaign used misleading tactics to convince voters to support its ballot placement.

The commission rejected the complaint in January, however, and said advocates who challenged the ballot measure raised “unsupported allegations” about the propriety of the signature gathering process that they said warranted official scrutiny.

In any case, separate polling has found that nearly half of those who signed the marijuana sales repeal petition felt misled, with many claiming that the measure was pitched to them as a proposal to address unrelated issues such as public education and expanded housing.

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

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.

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 recently reached another marijuana milestone, with officials announcing in February that the state has surpassed $9 billion in adult-use cannabis purchases since the market launched in 2018.

A report from the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) found that legalization is achieving one of its primary goals: disrupting illicit cannabis sales as adults transition to the regulated market. It shows that among adults who reported past-year marijuana use, an overwhelming 84 percent said they obtained their cannabis from a licensed source.

Massachusetts lawmakers also 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.

In December, state regulators also finalized rules for marijuana social consumption lounges.

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