The Florida Chamber of Commerce has filed a brief with the state Supreme Court, opposing the placement of an adult-use cannabis legalization initiative on the 2024 ballot. This in itself is not particularly noteworthy, though the Chamber’s opposition is curious, given the clear potential that legalization holds for, well, commerce. Nonetheless, the brief offers a prelude of what the Attorney General’s arguments against the initiative might be.
In its brief, the Chamber raises two main arguments for keeping the initiative off the ballot. The first is that the proposed amendment “forces voters to decide, by a single vote, whether Florida should decriminalize and commercialize recreational marijuana,” hence violating Florida’s requirement that constitutional amendment initiatives only address one subject.
This blog has, on more than one occasion, highlighted the differences between decriminalization and legalization, and clearly they are two different concepts. However, while decriminalization can take place without legalization, the inverse is not true. As a result, it is disingenuous to suggest that legalization and decriminalization are different subjects, when, as is the case here, a legalization initiative is being considered. Taken to its logical conclusion, the Florida Chamber’s argument would require that separate initiatives be voted on by Floridians, one
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