Ken Griffin, the Republican billionaire who donated more than $10 million to support Gov. Ron DeSantis’ gubernatorial races, said he has put forward $12 million to defeat Florida’s recreational marijuana amendment.
Amendment 3, which will be on the ballot in November, would allow people 21 and older to legally buy and use marijuana without a medical card. DeSantis has come out against the amendment, saying it would devalue Floridians’ quality of life by polluting the air with a marijuana stench — and saying that Florida’s Legislature would not be able to regulate when and where people can smoke. In an opinion piece in the Miami Herald, Griffin echoed that sentiment, saying the amendment would “permit pot use in public and private areas throughout Florida.” “That will help no one other than special interests — and it will hurt us all, especially through more dangerous roads, a higher risk of addiction among our youth, and an increase in crime,” Griffin wrote.
The Amendment 3 sponsor group, Smart & Safe Florida, has said the Legislature would be able to regulate marijuana use in the same way they can regulate tobacco use. Griffin donated the $12 million to a newly formed political committee created to defeat the amendment. The registered fundraising committee is called Keep Florida Clean, but the public facing campaign is called Vote No on 3. The committee is staffed with longtime DeSantis allies, including his chief of staff, who is working on the vote no campaign in his personal capacity. When the group launched in mid-July, it announced that it had the “full support of the Governor.” Sarah Bascom, a spokesperson for the vote no campaign, said the campaign was “thrilled to receive this generous support” and said the money would help them as they “ramp up what will be a vigorous and full-throated campaign to warn Floridians about this deceptive amendment that would make Florida the California of the east.”
Griffin, who supported DeSantis heavily as governor, held back in the 2024 Republican primary when DeSantis was running for president and critiqued DeSantis’ presidential campaign. But his donation to the Amendment 3 opposition campaign could signal a return to each other’s good graces.
The $12 million Griffin is spending on the marijuana opposition effort is part of $20 million he said he has invested in Florida races, according to his opinion piece. Florida’s campaign finance database hasn’t yet been updated to reflect Griffin’s donation to the opposition’s political committee, which has reported hardly any money raised. Smart & Safe Florida has raised more than $66 million dollars as of mid July, though they have spent tens of millions already on the petition gathering process and some advertisements. The vast majority of the committee’s donations come from Trulieve, a licensed marijuana dispensary.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article290703119.html
www.marijuanamoment.net
www.cbsnews.com
floridapolitics.com
