A Florida judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a marijuana company against the Republican Party in Florida for the failure of ‘Last Year’s Constitutional Amendment’ that aimed to legalize cannabis use among adults.
Trulieve, a company that spent over $100 million to try and pass Amendment 3 in November, filed a lawsuit against the GOP, claiming they knowingly misled voters regarding the change. Trulieve said the GOP’s campaign against the proposed reform was “intentionally false,” and made “demonstrably fabricated” claims.
However, in a Friday ruling, the judge dismissed the dispute. Judge Ronald W. Flury from the Second Judicial Circuit of New York dismissed the case with prejudice. Trulieve can no longer file an amended complaint.
Flury said that “additional facts would not be sufficient to establish a defamatory claim.”
Florida GOP Chairman Evan Power, who is also the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, praised this victory in social media on the weekend. Power said that the company was “trying to use legal warfare against us”.
His and the other Republicans in the state framed it as Trulieve’s second failure after the election.
They first tried to get Amendment 3 passed, and then tried to use legal warfare against us.
Win two huge wins in the upcoming tournament @FloridaGOP pic.twitter.com/iJMCgR4RMv
— Evan Power (@EvanPower) March 7, 2025
The court has now thrown out the desperate attempts to overturn the will of Floridians. Power said that as long as she is Chairman of the Florida GOP, they will fight for freedom of speech, and to oppose these liberal, out-of state monopolies. She has worked for a group that included hemp companies who contributed to defeating Amendment 3. “The Florida GOP will not be bullied by anyone—especially not far-left mega marijuana organizations like Trulieve.”
Trulieve has not responded to our request for a comment on Monday. The company claimed that it filed the suit to “set straight the record” after GOP television and mail ads against Amendment 3.
Trulieve alleged that a television spot implied that large corporations were the only ones who would gain from this proposal. Critics said that the proposal would lead to a “monopoly” with only a limited number of licenses, and prohibit home cultivation.
Trulieve’s case said it was not true because the state legislature would be empowered to issue additional licenses. And it noted that Florida already prohibits home cultivation of cannabis—a matter the constitutional amendment simply didn’t address.
The company complained that “Amendment 3 can’t prohibit what is already illegal.” “And the plain text” of Amendment 3 doesn’t mention home-grown cannabis, and it does not alter the existing state of law on that matter.
Florida Republicans issued a fiery release of press on Sunday, describing the new ruling “yet again an embarrassing defeat for Big Weed”.
Trulieve’s far-left supporters have suffered a second crushing defeat in four months. Florida voters defeated Amendment 3’s pro-pot scheme in November thanks to Florida GOP efforts to protect the constitution from irresponsible special interest meddling. Now, the court has shut down their latest tantrum, with Judge Flury finding RPOF’s advertisements informing voters of the dangers of Amendment 3 to be ‘sufficiently accurate’ and finding that Trulieve failed to establish that RPOF’s advertisements were defamatory.”
The marijuana initiative last year received a majority vote. However, Florida’s constitutional amendment requirement of 60 percent meant that the effort was not successful. That’s despite tens of millions of dollars coming into the Smart & Safe Florida campaign—chiefly from Trulieve—and an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
The Judge’s decision to dismiss the Florida GOP lawfare was a statement I made. pic.twitter.com/teX2Fs6LHW
— Evan Power (@EvanPower) March 8, 2025
Smart & Safe Florida is already gearing up for another ballot fight next year, having so far submitted just over 7,100 valid signatures of the 891,523 needed to make the 2026 ballot, according to the Florida Division of Elections.
The campaign’s 2026 iteration includes several changes that seem responsive to issues raised by critics about the 2024 version.
New language has been added to the law that prohibits marijuana products from being marketed as if they are appealing to kids.
Further, it states explicitly that the legislation will not “prevent the Legislature from providing for home-grown marijuana for adult personal use by the adults and reasonable regulation of such.” This clarification could help to calm the fears of some advocates, who were concerned about the absence of home-grown marijuana in the original proposal.
The initiative would also make it so medical marijuana operators that have been licensed as of January 1, 2025 would be able to start providing for adult-use sales starting on the effective date.
The new proposal also includes a nuance regarding licensing of businesses in the future who may want to move into the medical marijuana industry. The previous version was criticized by some for creating a monopoly that would benefit only the current medical marijuana operators. It simply stated that additional licenses were not prohibited, but did not mandate that it be taken up.
Last week, though, a state legislative panel advanced a proposal that could impose major restrictions on initiatives being placed on ballots, and thus hamper efforts to legalize marijuana.
Last month,meanwhile, a survey from the University of North Florida found that, despite last year’s ballot proposal failing, there’s overwhelming, bipartisan voter support for the reform. It showed that 67 percent of Florida voters now back legalization, including 82 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans.
The results conflict with another recent poll from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, a proactive opponent of legalization, that found majority support for the reform among likely voter (53 percent) but not enough to be enacted under the 60 percent requirement.
Meanwhile, the governor said in January that the latest version of the legalization initiative is in “big time trouble” with the state Supreme Court, predicting it will be blocked from going before voters next year.
DeSantis stated, “There are many different views on marijuana.” It shouldn’t be in the Constitution. You can vote for your legislator if you are strongly against it. You can go back and talk to candidates who you feel will be capable of delivering what your vision for that is.”
“But when you put these things in the Constitution—and I think, I mean, the way they wrote, there’s all kinds of things going on in here. He said, “I think the Florida Supreme Court will have a lot of trouble with this.”
Last year, the governor accurately predicted that the 2024 cannabis measure from the campaign would survive a legal challenge from the state attorney general. He doesn’t explain why this version of the campaign would have a different result.
Separately, a Florida GOP senator claimed recently that the legalization campaign “tricked” Trump into supporting the 2024 measure by misleading him and the general public about key provisions.
Ahead of the election, Trump said in September that he felt Amendment 3 was “going to be very good” for the state.
Before making the comments, Trump met with the CEO of Trulieve, Kim Rivers, as well as with a GOP state senator who is in favor of the reform.
While Trump endorsed the Florida cannabis initiative—as well as federal rescheduling and industry banking access—he has since been silent on cannabis issues. His cabinet members have mixed records when it comes to marijuana policy.
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