Massachusetts voters rejected Question 8 by a margin of 75 percent to 25 percent, defeating an effort to dismantle the state’s regulated adult-use cannabis market. The vote came ten years after Massachusetts voters originally approved adult-use legalization.
Project Champion, led by Gretchen Gailey, joined the Stop the Repeal campaign organized by Ryan Dominguez. The group brought former NFL running back Ricky Williams to Massachusetts to campaign against the measure.
Project Champion had no direct business interest in the state, according to Gailey. “An attack on one part of this industry is an attack on all of us,” Gailey wrote in Marijuana Moment.
Williams spoke directly to voters about what was at stake for business owners, consumers, patients, employees and communities. His personal journey has helped change the conversation around cannabis, health and wellness, Gailey said.
The campaign also supported Question 10 in Haverhill, an effort led by local advocates including Stem Dispensary owner Caroline Pineau. Haverhill voters narrowly approved the measure, which allows a safe, regulated place to responsibly consume cannabis.
“For too long, cannabis businesses, advocates, veterans, patients and policymakers have operated in separate corners of the same fight,” she wrote in Marijuana Moment.
She said disagreements over business models, regulations, personalities and competing interests have divided the movement. Opponents of legalization, by contrast, have organized around a common objective.
Gailey singled out Smart Approaches to Marijuana as a well-funded and well-organized group focused on ending cannabis legalization.
She argued that the movement’s diversity is not inherently a weakness. “They don’t need us to agree on everything. They just need us to remain divided,” Gailey wrote.
In Massachusetts, national voices joined local businesses, athletes stood alongside entrepreneurs, and advocates worked with community leaders. Gailey said that is the model the industry should take nationally.
Gailey warned against assuming the hardest work is behind the industry despite federal rescheduling progress. She noted the recent federal move to issue Schedule III registrations to hundreds of qualifying medical dispensaries raises questions about transparency, fairness and access.
She said a limited federal pathway for certain medical cannabis activities is not comprehensive reform or descheduling. It does not resolve uncertainty facing the broader state-legal industry.
Gailey also cautioned that a so-called blue wave in Congress does not guarantee a friendlier environment for reform. She noted that when Democrats controlled both chambers, the industry still failed to secure passage of priorities such as the SAFE Banking Act.
“Political alignment is not a substitute for political accountability,” Gailey wrote in Marijuana Moment.
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