Massachusetts Wants to Cancel Weed: $1.6 Billion on the Ballot

Massachusetts, the state that birthed both Dunkin’ Donuts and the Salem witch trials, has decided it hasn’t torched enough economies lately. On September 3, 2025 Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell certified a ballot petition that would erase the entire adult-use cannabis industry — a $1.6 billion market, hundreds of dispensaries, and tens of thousands of jobs — with one democratic backhand slap.

Yes, the same state that lectures the nation on “progressive leadership” is seriously considering pulling the plug on legal weed, all because a coalition of prohibitionists figured out the ballot initiative process isn’t just for casinos and bottle bills.

The Legal Suicide Note

The petition, if it collects the required signatures, would make it to the 2026 ballot. Its language isn’t surgical — it’s a nuclear strike: repeal all adult-use licenses, cultivation, processing, retail. Poof. Gone.

Imagine telling the thousands of operators who survived licensing gauntlets, paid seven figures in fees, and navigated a compliance maze designed by Kafka’s ghost that their reward is… extinction.

Campbell’s office gave the green light with bureaucratic calm, issuing a bland statement about “constitutional sufficiency.” Translation: the paperwork checks out, good luck, suckers.

Fake Morality, Real Money

Supporters of the ban are the usual suspects: pearl-clutching suburban coalitions with names like “Massachusetts for Healthy Futures” and “Citizens for Safe Youth.” Their arguments read like they were written during a PTO bake sale.

One “concerned parent,” interviewed outside a Whole Foods in Newton, told us:

“I just don’t want my kids buying weed legally. They should buy it from the same guy I did in college. Builds character.”

Meanwhile, a leaked “internal memo” from the so-called Massachusetts Morality Board (obtained by Boof du Jour, scrawled in crayon and coffee stains) outlined the fiscal cost of the repeal:

• Loss of $270 million in annual tax revenue

• Elimination of ~30,000 jobs

• Explosion of black-market activity
  

The memo concludes: “But remember: stoners don’t vote.”

The Real Clusterfuck

Let’s be clear: Massachusetts didn’t get here because cannabis was working flawlessly. The CCC botched equity rollouts, over-licensed certain markets into oblivion, and spent more time fighting with itself than regulating. Operators bled cash while the illicit market stayed thriving.

Now prohibitionists are exploiting those cracks, selling the repeal as “protecting kids” while knowing damn well it’s about dismantling a system too messy to defend itself.

An anonymous whistleblower inside the AG’s office told us:

“We just wanted fewer press releases about vape recalls. Suddenly I’m the executioner for an entire industry. I haven’t slept in three days. My desk smells like bong water.”

The Scene at Ground Zero

We went to a mock “town hall” in Worcester, which felt less like civic engagement and more like an open mic night in hell.

• Dispensary owners tried bribing locals with free gummies if they’d oppose the petition.

• An ex-hippie in a Patagonia vest sobbed into the microphone, saying he never thought legalization would end this way.

• A selectman from Quincy denied being high while visibly holding a lit joint behind his clipboard.
  

By the end, someone tried to barter a half-ounce of Gorilla Glue for a signature sheet. Democracy has never smelled skunkier.

What’s Next

The petitioners need tens of thousands of valid signatures. If they get them, the fate of the industry will be decided not by regulators, not by experts, but by Massachusetts voters — the same people who thought legalizing happy hour was too radical.

If successful, every MSO, every mom-and-pop, every half-baked “social equity” experiment will vanish overnight. And the black market will happily step back into the spotlight, this time without even having to undercut legal prices.

Closing Shot

Massachusetts isn’t reforming cannabis — it’s auditioning for a reality show called America’s Dumbest State Economy. If this petition makes the ballot, every operator in the state better start selling lobster rolls, Dunkin’ franchises, or Red Sox merch, because weed is about to be the next witch trial.