No state citizenry has backtracked on hashish legalization after an authorized and controlled program was once applied, however prohibitionists are hoping to provide Massachusetts citizens the chance.
Massachusetts Legal professional Basic Andrew Pleasure Campbell qualified two variations of a 2026 poll initiative petition on Sept. 3 that intends to repeal state regulations governing the commonwealth’s industrial adult-use hashish market, together with authorized cultivation and dispensary operations.
In different phrases, the petition would undo the hashish legalization measure that Massachusetts citizens handed with a 54% majority within the 2016 election by means of halting an business that has produced greater than $8.3 billion in retail income, just about $900 million in excise tax income and kind of $540 million in gross sales tax income since dispensary gross sales introduced in December 2018, in keeping with the state’s Hashish Keep watch over Fee.
Moreover, Massachusetts’ authorized hashish marketplace helps 27,000-some jobs, in keeping with business hiring platform Vangst.
The petition, “Any Act to Repair a Good Marijuana Coverage,” is pushed by means of Carolina Cunningham, a political advisor, marketing campaign supervisor {and professional} fundraiser who aligns with the prohibitionist team Sensible Approaches to Marijuana.
Cunningham and her fellow proponents of the petition can now get started collecting the 74,574 signatures of registered citizens they’ll want to post to the Secretary of the Commonwealth by means of Dec. 3, 2025, to paintings towards qualifying for the poll.
As soon as the ones signatures are verified, the Massachusetts 2026 Legislature reserves the proper to imagine the proposal. If lawmakers don’t act on it by means of Might 6, 2026, the proponents would want to accumulate some other 12,429 signatures by means of July 1, 2026, to qualify for the proposed regulation for the November 2026 election, in keeping with Campbell’s place of work.
“I applaud the civic engagement of our citizens, who filed a record-breaking 47 poll initiative petitions this yr,” Campbell stated on Sept. 3. “My place of work critiques each and every petition in keeping with the stern standards defined in Article 48 of our state charter. Our non-public reviews and any constitutional issues out of doors of Article 48 can not weigh into our decision-making about certification of a petition.”
Whilst Cunningham objectives to get rid of Massachusetts’ taxed and controlled adult-use marketplace, “Model A” of her qualified petition would additionally topic the state’s scientific hashish marketplace to new efficiency boundaries, together with a 30% THC cap on flower and a 60% THC prohibit on concentrates. As well as, it will limit concentrated varieties of scientific hashish that fail to supply a metered supply serving of five milligrams of THC with not more than 20 metered doses (100 milligrams) in step with package deal.
In the meantime, “Model B” of the petition does no longer come with those efficiency and dosage necessities. Each variations proceed the state’s scientific hashish program and are in a different way an identical.
Additionally underneath the proposal, possessing as much as 1 ounce of hashish or 5 grams of listen could be decriminalized for the ones 21 and older, as would gifting those quantities between adults. Possessing between 1 ounce and a pair of oz of hashish would topic folks to a civil penalty of $100 and product forfeiture, whilst the ones more youthful than 21 would even have to finish a drug consciousness program and group provider.
The proposal would offer sure protections for individuals who possess not up to 2 oz of hashish, corresponding to get right of entry to to pupil monetary assist, public housing or monetary help, corresponding to unemployment advantages, the proper to perform a motor car, or to function a foster or adoptive guardian. Hashish use additionally would no longer disqualify an individual from a wanted scientific process.
Essentially, the petition would power adult-use hashish shoppers out of the authorized, examined and taxed market.
Within the absence of adult-use industrial operators, 91% of Massachusetts’ regulated hashish marketplace would stop to exist, in keeping with an unique scientific file printed remaining month by means of Hashish Industry Instances.
“The proposed regulation would permit these days authorized grownup leisure marijuana companies to use on an expedited foundation to turn out to be an authorized scientific marijuana dispensary and to promote their last stock of grownup leisure marijuana to scientific marijuana dispensaries,” in keeping with an professional abstract of the petition. “The proposed regulation would retain the Hashish Keep watch over Fee however alter its authority so it will keep an eye on simplest the scientific marijuana marketplace.”
If handed by means of citizens, the proposed regulation would turn out to be efficient on Jan. 1, 2028.
