In Florida’s Weed Wars, Griffin and DeSantis Clash With Trump and ‘Pot Daddy’

November 5, 2024 by Michael Smith

In Florida’s weed wars, the big money is going against Governor Ron DeSantis and the financier of his anti-cannabis crusade, billionaire Ken Griffin.

The Citadel founder has funded about half of the campaign against a referendum on legalizing recreational marijuana in Florida — or $12 million. DeSantis’ efforts to secure more money have fizzled.

That total pales in comparison with the $153 million the cannabis industry has poured into the ballot initiative, known as Amendment 3. The most recent polling shows 60% or more of Florida voters support the proposition, just enough to pass on Tuesday.

To get there, Big Weed has powerful allies, including the two leading candidates for president. Palm Beach resident Donald Trump says he’ll vote for Amendment 3, and Vice President Kamala Harris has pledged to legalize marijuana nationwide if elected.

The South Florida Teamsters union endorsed it, too. The pro-weed spokesman, John Morgan, a celebrity personal injury lawyer who calls himself “Pot Daddy,” spent more than $15 million on the campaign that legalized medical marijuana in the Sunshine State in a 2016 referendum. Not surprisingly, he supports this year’s proposal as well, despite opposition from Griffin and the governor.

“I’m more in favor of it than I was when I began all of this,” said Morgan, who monetizes his advocacy by selling Pot Daddy merchandise on the website of his 1,000-lawyer Orlando firm. “I can’t find one good argument against it.”

Other wealthy opponents tried raising money for the anti-weed cause, with little success. Organizers scrapped plans for a late-summer fundraiser in Miami headlined by DeSantis, according to a person involved in the plan.

DeSantis has made up for the lack of private donors by having multiple state agencies fund public service ads about the risks of marijuana.One Department of Transportation spot features three sheriffs who publicly oppose Amendment 3, and the Department of Children and Families recently allocated $4 million for a campaign about “the dangers of marijuana.”

The governor also had his wife, Casey, take point, and she’s zeroed in on how her husband’s been outspent. A single company, Trulieve Cannabis Corp., has pumped roughly $145 million into the pro-weed campaign, or 94% of all the money raised.

“This is not about freedom; this is about corporate greed,” Casey DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville on Oct. 24, flanked by sheriffs in the DOT ads.

For the $32 billion US weed industry, there’s billions of dollars at stake.

Annual weed sales in Florida could jump 60% by 2028 to $4.5 billion, according to the cannabis market intelligence firm BDSA, super-charged by the state’s 23 million people and waves of tourists in Miami and other areas looking to party. Trulieve, which has more than $1 billion in annual sales, expects legalization to move 2.7 million Floridians into the legal weed market.

Legalizing marijuana has been a well-worn routine in the US: Two dozen other states have done it. But Florida is a major prize. Cannabis companies operate under a near-ban on access to banks because pot is illegal at the federal level. But with Florida on board, about 60% of the US population would have access to recreational weed, which advocates say will make national legalization more likely.

“I think we’re at a tipping point in the United States,” said Trulieve Chief Executive Officer Kim Rivers. Trulieve has two-thirds of its medical marijuana dispensaries and multiple grow sites in Florida, and the potential for expansion makes it worth bankrolling the campaign for legalization, said Rivers.

Florida requires a ballot initiative to get 60% support to pass, a barrier that’s expensive to overcome, Rivers said. And it cost $40 million to collect and certify the signatures needed to get it on the ballot, she said. A recent poll by Florida Atlantic University and Mainstreet Research USA, on Oct. 29, showed 60% of voters supported legalization and 34% opposed it, with 6% undecided.

On July 30, Griffin upped the ante withhis $12 million donation to Keep Florida Clean, the political committee chaired by James Uthmeier, the governor’s chief of staff.

A few days later, Griffin penned an opinion article in the Miami Herald, echoing DeSantis’ assertions that legal weed will scare away tourists with its pungent smell, lead kids to more dangerous drugs and drive up violent crime. He pointed out to a poll of Maryland voters, who overwhelmingly approved legalization in 2022, being divided on its positive impact.

Weed is the latest political cause that Griffin has taken on since moving his family and Citadel to Miami from Chicago in 2022. He’s publicly lauded Miami for low crime, good schools and zero state taxes, while bashing Chicago.

Legalization “will lead to skyrocketing crime, suffering among children and a decline in the quality of life in Florida’s vibrant neighborhoods,” Zia Ahmed, Griffin’s spokesman, said via email. “Ken cares deeply about his state’s future, and Amendment 3 will take Florida in the wrong direction.”

Advocates for legalization cite a US Department of Health and Human Services review of marijuana ordered by President Joe Biden. “The vast majority of individuals who use marijuana are doing so in a manner that does not lead to dangerous outcomes to themselves or others,” the HHS concluded in August 2023.

The agency recommends that the Drug Enforcement Administration reclassify marijuana as a so-called Schedule III drug, akin to Tylenol with codeine. It’s now a Schedule I drug like heroin and LSD.

“Whether we’re talking about cannabis legalization through the lens of public safety and crime, public health or it being a possible gateway drug, there’s really mixed results,” said Brian Keegan, a University of Colorado computer science professor who’s studied research on the impacts of legalization.

Armando Codina, a Miami real estate tycoon, was so worried about the specter of legalization that he tried to rally wealthy people he knows to give money to DeSantis’ cause.

“This is just a terrible idea for Florida,” Codina said in an interview from his Coral Gables office.

But the pitch hasn’t produced many big checks from individual donors. Keep Florida Clean raised about $24 million by late October, mostly from Griffin,a committee linked to the Florida Chamber of Commerce and an advocacy group, Save Our Society from Drugs, disclosures show.

By then, the pro-weed forces had already outspent them by more than 9-to-1.

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Top photo: Ken Griffin and Ron DeSantis. (Photographer: Christopher Dilts and Al Drago/Bloomberg)

Bloomberg’s Anna Kaiser co-authored this report.

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