Florida election officials excluded more than 54,000 validated signatures in their statewide tally for an adult-use legalization petition, and cannabis readers had nowhere else to turn than Cannabis Business Times’ coverage for the details.
In turn, our exclusive report on the state-versus-county valid signature discrepancies for Smart & Safe Florida’s initiative petition was CBT’s No. 1 most-read article this month.
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd’s office provided CBT with no explanation as to why the Division of Elections’ website short-changed the campaign in more than 30 of the state’s 67 counties, where supervisors of elections verified signatures at the local level.
In Broward County, for example, election officials validated 71,474 signatures for Smart & Safe Florida’s petition, but the Florida Division of Elections’ website only credited the campaign with 55,440 signatures in that county – a 16,044-signature difference.
What happened?
“You would have to direct that question to the state,” Broward County Public Information Officer Lisa Lee Arneaud told CBT. “The numbers I presented to you are the numbers we reported.”
The Florida Division of Elections has since removed all signature tallies from its website, which now shows the campaign collected zero signatures, amid an ongoing lawsuit that Smart & Safe Florida is asking the state’s Supreme Court to review.
Taking the No. 2 spot in this month’s most-read articles was an opinion piece by Julie A. Werner-Simon telling cannabis industry stakeholders not to “hold your breath” on rescheduling, explaining why she believes a Schedule III listing won’t happen "any time soon" under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Werner-Simon called Trump’s executive order, which directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “expedite completion” of the Schedule III process, nothing more than a “window dressing for doing nothing,” sparking enthusiastic debate on CBT’s social media channels.
In the No. 3 spot this month was a piece on Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filing an antitrust lawsuit against nine multistate cannabis operators, claiming they conspired to form "cartels" to eliminate their smaller rivals in anti-competitive practices that “reduce product choice and keep prices artificially high” in the Buckeye State.
This month’s most-read articles also included pieces on the 2026 Farm Bill draft, vape sales dethroning flower sales in California, and Virginia’s apparently inevitable adult-use sales launch under a new government trifecta.
Don’t miss out on the rest of our Top 10 stories from February 2026.
