Amid new reporting that Florida-based hemp businesses are rallying behind Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) campaign to defeat a marijuana legalization initiative—with an apparent pledge from hemp executives to donate $5 million to the Republican party as it works to oppose the effort—one particular cannabis-affiliated company has come under the spotlight after contributing a $100,000 boost to the governor’s so-called “Florida Freedom Fund” after its initially tepid fundraising start.
This comes weeks after the governor vetoed a bill to ban most consumable hemp products in a move that some suspect was at least partly meant to garner the industry’s favor in his anti-marijuana crusade.
DeSantis launched the political action committee—which is targeting both the legalization measure and a separate abortion rights initiative that will appear on the November ballot—last month. It has about $121,000 on hand, the bulk of which comes from POB Ventures, which is linked to a medical cannabis worker training institution and a chain of hemp businesses.
In an exclusive interview with Marijuana Moment, the CEO of POB Ventures, Patrick O’Brien, said he’s not against adult-use cannabis legalization in principle—but is instead troubled by the specific language of the ballot initiative because it provides an option, rather than a mandate, for regulators to approve additional licenses. He suggested the framework could create a monopolized cannabis economy that primarily benefits the state’s existing medical marijuana companies, including the multi-state operators such as Trulieve that have primarily financed the legalization campaign.
“If you look very closely at the writing, they just messed up—and it was with full intent to mess this up,” O’Brien, who also runs the education platform Sativa University and the cannabis product company Chronic Guru, argued. “All they had to do was make a simple change from ‘may’ issue more licenses to ‘must’ issue more licenses, and we would have had a recreational market.”
By giving regulators that licensing discretion, the measure could effectively kneecap prospective businesses outside of the existing medical cannabis space, he claims.
But there’s been criticism of the major contribution to the DeSantis PAC, which O’Brien says he will continue to support beyond the initial donation.
For one, the governor himself has made abundantly clear that he opposes any form of adult-use legalization, regardless of the “must” versus “may” nuance. He has consistently complained about the smell of cannabis that he said would become rampant in Florida with legalization. He’s argued that the existing medical marijuana program is sufficient. And he’s said that if voters approve Amendment 3, it will negatively impact the overall wellbeing of Floridians, the majority of whom support the proposal.
Pressed on the governor’s ideological opposition to legalization, O’Brien, the owner of a hemp retail chain, said he was motivated to contribute to the Freedom Fund by what he perceives to be DeSantis’s consistency in supporting small businesses, irrespective of his position on other political issues. And he saw his dollars potentially stretching further by contributing to the governor’s PAC, compared to independently opposing Amendment 3 through another vehicle.
“All he has done since being in office—at least for me, being here with boots on the ground, in regard to small business—is fight for it,” O’Brien said. “Why in the world, as a small business, when I’m going up against a giant, why would I not align myself with such a mindset?”
It should be noted, of course, that the Freedom Fund is not only targeting the legalization measure. It is also meant to shore up opposition to an abortions rights constitutional amendment that will also appear on the ballot this upcoming election.
O’Brien acknowledged that point—and he conceded that he has concerns about the optics of providing funding for an anti-legalization politician with other contentious policy positions.
“Who wouldn’t be [concerned]?” he said. “I mean, the guy’s talking about abortion and all kinds of other things. But at the end of the day, that’s not what I’m here for. I’m here for the little guy. I’m here for the small business. And if we got a guy out there that holds such a high seat, and has a little bit of oomph behind his word. Why would I not at least consider using that to our advantage as small businesses with the very little resources we have?”
Suspicions about the motivations behind the contribution to DeSantis’s PAC aren’t likely to dissolve, especially amid new reporting from CBS News Miami that unnamed hemp businesses have joined forces to back DeSantis in his fight against the legalization measure, with a pledge to contribute $5 million collectively to the state Republican Party after the governor vetoed the bill that ostensibly would have wiped out the market by banning most consumable cannabinoid products.
“We know nothing in life is free and neither was this veto,” a leaked WhatsApp message from the Save Florida Hemp chain states, according to the local news outlet.
“We are currently seen as DeSantis’s allies to defeat the recreational ballot initiative,” the post from late last month said. “Our lobby team made promises to rally some serious funding to stand with him on this. He chose Hemp as his champion and now we’ve got to deliver.”
“We have to pay $5 million to keep our end of the veto,” another person, characterized as a hemp executive by CBS, said.
“We’ve been told that this is a 2-part deal,” another message says. “Come up with money to fight our biggest enemies [marijuana] monopolies. Alley-oop reasonable legislation to secure longevity for our industry in Florida.”
The thread also contained a routing number for the state Republican Party’s bank account, CBS reported. The messages suggested that the group has already contributed $2 million across dozens of payments to the party.
While there’s suspicion that the contributions are linked to to DeSantis’s veto of the hemp ban bill, a spokesperson for the governor’s said that any suggestion he took the legislative action in anticipation of contributions is “false.”
“Governor DeSantis vetoed SB 1698 because the bill would impose debilitating regulatory burdens on small businesses,” they said.
A hemp executive also told CBS News that he doesn’t believe there’s connection between the governor’s action on the hemp bill and the new industry contributions.
“I don’t think there was any link to the veto,” JJ Combs, CEO of Arvida Labs and Mellow Fellow, said. “I think it’s really that we support what DeSantis is doing, what the governor’s doing. We want to help fight against the Amendment 3.”
“This isn’t about influence,” he said. “This is about supporting the Republicans of Florida because they are they’re helping us. They’re helping fight an amendment that we all believe is bad.”
The WhatsApp messages also describe a meeting with Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power, the party’s executive director Bill Helmich and attorney Jeff Aaron, a DeSantis appointee with the state Public Employees Relations Commission and registered hemp lobbyist, according to CBS.
Power and Helmich are also lobbyists with Florida Healthy Alternatives, a major hemp association that’s opposing Amendment 3. The president of that organization, J.D. McCormick, told The Miami Herald that, without DeSantis, “the hemp industry right now would be illegal in Florida. And then Trulieve would go on to develop a monopoly” if the legalization measure is approved.
“It’s just the natural course of events,” he said. “Now that we’re alive and still here, we’re going to try to fight them” on the amendment.
Power also rejected the notion that there was a deal between hemp businesses and the party to oppose the initiative that was motivated by the governor’s hemp ban veto, telling CBS that “the only conversations I’ve had are encouraging people to donate because of the interest they have in protecting their industry against monopoly power.”
“There was no deal on the legislation,” Power told the Herald. “We obviously were trying to work to get the bill vetoed to protect small businesses and were glad the governor did veto it.”
O’Brien, for his part, denied any connection to the group of hemp operators who were involved in the WhatsApp thread.
Paul Armentano, deputy director of the pro-legalization group NORML, told Marijuana Moment that while he can’t specifically speak to O’Brien’s motivations, he feels the dispute over the initiative’s language misses the broader point: If Florida voters reject the measure, tens of thousands of individuals will continue to be subject to some of the most punitive cannabis laws in the country.
Should the distinction about whether regulators “must” versus “may” issue additional licenses mean that “66,000 Floridians should be arrested every year?” he said, citing recent reporting about the scope of cannabis criminalization in the state.
“It’s disappointing to see that folks who represent an industry that largely relies on the patronage of cannabis consumers would be okay with allowing tens of thousands of those consumers continue to face arrest and prosecution in Florida,” he said.
It’s been previously reported that the governor is hoping to garner support for his efforts to defeat the marijuana legalization initiative from the state’s hemp industry. DeSantis seemed to concede last month that his veto of a bill to ban most consumable hemp-derived cannabinoids was at least partly because he hoped the market would aid in his anti-legalization campaign.
A similar situation has played out at the congressional level, with hemp stakeholders at odds with certain marijuana companies that are supporting legislative efforts to enact a federal ban on a wide range of hemp-based cannabinoid products.
To that end, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee approved a 2025 spending bill last week that contains a controversial section to prohibit cannabinoid products such as delta-8 THC and CBD containing any “quantifiable” amount of THC.
The DeSantis campaign committee, even with the recent contributions, is still miles behind the Smart & Safe Florida campaign in terms of funding. The marijuana legalization effort has raised over $60 million since launching in late 2022.
DeSantis has been railing against the marijuana measure for months—most recently arguing that it would protect the right to use cannabis more strongly than the First Amendment protects free speech or the Second Amendment protects gun rights—and again claiming that the reform has been a “failed experiment” in states such as Colorado.
The governor said last month that the proposal would allow people to “do marijuana wherever you want—just smoke it, take it, and it would turn Florida into San Francisco or Chicago or some of these places.”
He then reprised one of his chief complaints about the potential impact of legalization: Smelling cannabis.
“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 specifics of the legalization proposal and that ballot initiatives are generally “so bogus.”
DeSantis acknowledged that the state Supreme Court has a role in reviewing ballot language for constitutionality, and that a majority of justices determined that the marijuana measure met the legal standard. But while he previously correctly predicted the court would approve the initiative following a challenge from state Attorney General Ashley Moody (R), he now says the two dissenting justices were “correct” in trying to block voters from deciding on the measure.
DeSantis also claimed last month that that if voters approve the marijuana legalization initiative, people “will be able to bring 20 joints to an elementary school”—and he again complained about the prevalent odor of cannabis that he says would result from the reform.
Legalization has “not worked in any single place,” the governor said, and he challenged a recent ad from the campaign that promoted regulating cannabis as an alternative to the status quo of people using untested cannabis from illicit sellers.
Meanwhile, according to a Fox News poll released last month, two in three Florida voters support the cannabis initiative—with the issue proving more popular than the governor himself. The survey showed majority support for legalization across the political spectrum, too.
The governor has consistently argued that the state shouldn’t go beyond the existing medical cannabis program and that broader reform would negatively impact the quality of life for Floridians. The Florida Republican Party also formally came out against Amendment 3 last month.
Smart & Safe Florida separately announced in March that it was working to form a coalition of veterans to build voter support for the reform, and the campaign has since formally launched that initiative.
Here’s what the Smart & Safe Florida marijuana legalization initiative would accomplish:
- Adults 21 and older could purchase and possess up to three ounces of cannabis for personal use. The cap for marijuana concentrates would be five grams.
- Medical cannabis dispensaries could “acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute marijuana products and marijuana accessories to adults for personal use.”
- The legislature would be authorized—but not required—to approve additional entities that are not currently licensed cannabis dispensaries.
- The initiative specifies that nothing in the proposal prevents the legislature from “enacting laws that are consistent with this amendment.”
- The amendment further clarifies that nothing about the proposal “changes federal law,” which seems to be an effort to avoid past legal challenges about misleading ballot language.
- There are no provisions for home cultivation, expungement of prior records or social equity.
- The measure would take effect six months following approval by voters.
Here’s the full text of the ballot title and summary:
“Allows adults 21 years or older to possess, purchase, or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for non-medical personal consumption by smoking, ingestion, or otherwise; allows Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers, and other state licensed entities, to acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute such products and accessories. Applies to Florida law; does not change, or immunize violations of, federal law. Establishes possession limits for personal use. Allows consistent legislation. Defines terms. Provides effective date.”
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Economic analysts from the Florida legislature and DeSantis’s office, estimate that the marijuana legalization initiative would generate between $195.6 million and $431.3 million in new sales tax revenue annually if voters enact it. Those figures could increase considerably if lawmakers opted to impose an additional excise tax on cannabis transactions that’s similar to the ones in place in other legalized states.
Unlike the governor, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) said in April that he does believe Florida voters will approve the legalization initiative.
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