When it comes to putting a proposed new law before voters, it helps to have lots of money ready to burn.
More than $11 million has already changed hands to advance or oppose a potentially record-breaking field of ballot questions that Massachusetts voters could decide in November, according to newly filed campaign finance reports, including a significant injection by a national dark-money group that opposes legal drug use.
All $1.55 million raised so far in support of a proposal to recriminalize recreational marijuana in Massachusetts came from SAM Action Inc., an organization that is not required to disclose the source of its own funding.
It’s the same organization that bankrolled opposition to a 2024 Massachusetts ballot question that sought to open up access to some psychedelic substances, which voters rejected.
Massachusetts is not alone as a battleground, either. SAM Action is also the only donor behind a ballot question in Maine this cycle that would similarly prohibit recreational pot use there, as the Portland Press Herald reported.
Both campaigns have generated scrutiny over their efforts to gather signatures from voters.
In Massachusetts, opponents filed an objection alleging the campaign “obtained signatures fraudulently” by telling voters the measure would provide affordable housing or fund public parks, not that it would ban recreational marijuana.
The State Ballot Law Commission heard arguments last week and is expected to rule by Friday. State law empowers the panel to determine whether signatures were placed on a ballot question petition “by fraud,” and its interpretation could set off a lengthier court battle over whether the question can go before voters.
Similarly, Mainers have been alleging in recent weeks that they were misled about what the anti-marijuana petition would do when they signed it. Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, said she’s received complaints about the topic, adding that she has no enforcement power because, as she put it to lawmakers, “You have a right to lie under the First Amendment.”
Wendy Wakeman, a veteran Republican operative who is working as spokesperson for the repeal campaign, said the Massachusetts and Maine questions are “not a coordinated effort” despite funding coming from the same national group.
SAM Action is a 501(c)(4) organization, so it’s not required to disclose its donors, leaving unclear exactly who is putting major dollars toward shutting down an industry both Massachusetts and Maine voted nearly a decade ago to legalize.
On its website, SAM Action claims affiliation with the nonprofit Smart Approaches to Marijuana group co-founded by former US Rep. Patrick Kennedy—a Democrat who represented Rhode Island, and the son of longtime US Sen. Ted Kennedy—along with former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy advisor Kevin Sabet and David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush who is now a senior editor at The Atlantic.
Wakeman declined to comment on SAM Action’s primary donors.
Hellbound and Down 