DeSantis Says Cannabis Legalization Amendment Will Protect Weed Rights Better Than 1st, 2nd Amendments Protect Free Speech, Gun Rights

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is intensifying his opposition to the proposed  cannabis legalization ballot, known as Amendment 3.

At a Tuesday press briefing, DeSantis said the measure would safeguard cannabis rights more robustly than the First Amendment protects free speech or the Second Amendment safeguards gun rights.

"There's no limitations in the amendment language," DeSantis said. "And so I think what will happen is — it's more broad, this amendment, for you to be able to possess and smoke pot than the First Amendment is, than the Second Amendment is, than like core amendments that grew out of the founding of this country."

Asked about the Florida Freedom Fund PAC, which he explicitly said was created to defeat Amendment 3 and the abortion rights initiative in the November elections, DeSantis reiterated his beef against marijuana: the smell.

"We've got to keep our streets clean. We cannot have every town smelling like marijuana. We cannot have every hotel smelling — theme parks," he said, adding that voters don't really understand the details of either proposal, first reported Marijuana Moment.

In the briefing following the Job Growth Grant Fund awards, DeSantis said if Florida legalizes cannabis, it's going to end up resembling cities like San Francisco or Chicago, where he says people "do marijuana" wherever and whenever they want. “We've got to keep our streets clean. We cannot have every town smelling like marijuana.”

Critics from the Smart & Safe Florida campaign argue that DeSantis’s fears are overblown and that the state legislature could establish appropriate restrictions to responsibly manage public marijuana consumption.

DeSantis's rhetoric has escalated over the past several weeks with claims that if approved the initiative would allow people to flaunt cannabis in sensitive places like schools. In mid-April, he said “So someone walking by an elementary school just sitting there toking up, that’s somehow okay?”

DeSantis told reporters that marijuana legalization has universally failed, pointing to what he describes as an increase in the black market in states like Colorado and California. He based arguments made by proponents of legalization who have explained that a regulated would in fact reduce illegal sales, curbing underage use and generating tax revenue for public services.

Despite his staunch opposition to cannabis legalization, DeSantis recently vetoed legislation that would ban the sale of intoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoids. This move was seen by many as a strategic decision to curry favor with the hemp industry, potentially to gain its support against the marijuana legalization initiative.

See Related News: DeSantis Can’t Get Past The Odor Of Weed To Smell The Flowers — Specifically, $430M Annually In Cannabis Revenue

Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by Gage Skidmore of Ron DeSantis via Wikimedia Commons; photo by Jose Luis Sanchez Pereyra via Unsplash