{"id":134143,"date":"2026-01-27T23:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/134143\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T23:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:06:07","slug":"court-ruling-threatens-marijuana-amendments-path-to-florida-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/134143\/","title":{"rendered":"Court ruling threatens marijuana amendment\u2019s path to Florida ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; The sponsor behind a legal marijuana use amendment is rushing to get it on the ballot before this year\u2019s elections. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">However, a recent court ruling may stop the effort in its tracks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Smart and Safe Florida is trying to get adult personal use of marijuana on the November ballot, with a deadline of February 1. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">On Tuesday, an appeals court sided with the state in its efforts to invalidate 70,000 signatures, finding some were signed by inactive voters and others were collected by non-Florida residents working for the sponsor. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">SSF has filed an emergency appeal to have more judges hear the case. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"A look at the signature breakdown for the Big Bend. It\u2019s unclear how many of these were part...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/TQS5NGM2DVCJPEJ4XY25QAI33Q.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>A look at the signature breakdown for the Big Bend. It\u2019s unclear how many of these were part of the disputed signatures. (WCTV)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Safe and Smart Florida needs at least 880,000 verified signatures by February 1. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The measure was on the last election ballot and got more than half the vote. However, ot missed the 60% threshold required for constitutional amendments. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/01\/27\/court-ruling-threatens-marijuana-amendments-path-florida-ballot\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; The sponsor behind a legal marijuana use amendment is rushing to get it on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17907,33806,22439,509,8219,28,30,29,1289,7659,6319,1831,65764,4497,13983],"class_list":["post-134143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-amendment","tag-appeals-court","tag-ballot","tag-big-bend","tag-court","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-leon-county","tag-marijuana","tag-medical","tag-petition","tag-signatures","tag-supreme-court","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}