Maine Campaign to Kill Adult-Use Cannabis Market Misses 2026 Signature Deadline

The attack on Maine’s adult-use cannabis program won’t materialize in 2026.

A prohibitionist campaign aiming to wipe out the state’s marketplace for those 21 and older failed to file signatures ahead of the Feb. 2 deadline to land its proposal on the November 2026 ballot, a spokesperson from the Maine Secretary of State Department confirmed Tuesday with Cannabis Business Times.

Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future Inc., the group behind the prohibition proposal, will now have until June 8, 2027, to gather the 67,682 valid signatures required for the November 2027 election.

“The cannabis petitions were not returned yesterday,” Deputy Secretary of State for Communications Jana Spaulding said. “Only the transgender group returned petitions in advance of the 2026 deadline.”

Spaulding was referring to Protect Girls Sports, the group behind a 2026 ballot proposal to require schools to designate sports teams, locker rooms and bathrooms by a person’s gender assigned at birth.

The cannabis petition, “An Act to Amend the Cannabis Legalization Act and the Maine Medical Use of Cannabis Act,” intends to repeal provisions of the Cannabis Legalization Act to prohibit licensed and regulated cannabis companies from cultivating, manufacturing and selling adult-use products. Maine voters approved the legalization measure with a 50.3% majority in 2016.

Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future also intends to prohibit adults 21 and older from growing personal amounts of cannabis at home. Under the Cannabis Legalization Act, they’re currently allowed to cultivate up to six mature plants and 12 immature plants at their private residences.

While pro-cannabis legalization advocates and industry stakeholders might take this news as a victory – that the prohibitionist canvassers failed to collect enough signatures ahead of the Feb. 2 deadline – it doesn’t change the fact that the prohibition petition includes a Jan. 1, 2028, effective date.

In other words, it’s not a delay of the prohibition proposal but rather a delay in which election the proposal will ultimately be decided in.

In essence, if Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future is successful in the 2027 election, rather than the 2026 election, the state’s licensed businesses and consumers will actually have less time to prepare. That includes medical cannabis businesses, which would be subject to new tracking and testing requirements under the proposal.

Whether Maine voters would support the proposal is one story. Whether Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future has the financial muscle to meet the new 2027 signature-gathering deadline is another question.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) Action Inc., the most notorious cannabis prohibition organization in the U.S., contributed $2 million to Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future in December, according to a campaign finance activity report filed in mid-January with the Maine Ethics Commission.

Based in Virginia, SAM Action is the lone contributor to the campaign so far. As a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization, whose funding comes from non-tax-deductible donations, SAM Action does not have to disclose its donors, meaning the Maine prohibition petition is being funded by “dark money.”

SAM Action is an affiliate of SAM, a 501(c)(3) “charitable” organization that promotes policies against the commercialization and normalization of cannabis through its tax-deductible donors.

SAM President and CEO Kevin Sabet announced in December his organization’s multimillion-dollar support for the prohibition petition not only in Maine, but also in Massachusetts, where organizers met a signature-gathering deadline that month for a similar proposal to land on their state’s November 2026 ballot.

Sabet’s announcement came as a reaction to President Donald Trump signing an executive order on Dec. 18, directing U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi to “expedite completion” of a President Joe Biden-era proposal to reclassify cannabis from a Schedule I to III drug.

Sabet said, “We still have the power to take back our public health.”

In addition to the $2 million to Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future, SAM Action also contributed $1.55 million to the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts Inc., which filed 78,301 valid signatures in December, according to Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s election division.

The Massachusetts prohibition campaign expended roughly $1.44 million to meet that signature-gathering deadline, and, in the absence of the Massachusetts Legislature taking up the proposal, the group would still need to collect 12,429 more valid signatures between May 5 and July 1 to officially land its question on the November 2026 ballot.

In Maine, the prohibition campaign still had more than $1.5 million of its cash on hand as of the mid-January campaign finance filing with the Ethics Commission. With fewer signatures to gather than in Massachusetts, Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future will likely meet its filing deadline next year to land a question on the November 2027 ballot.

Roughly 94% of Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future’s expenditures so far have gone toward personnel, campaign staff, consulting and independent contractor costs, according to the Ethics Commission.

Those opposing the prohibition campaign have accused out-of-state paid canvassers of misrepresenting the proposal to trick registered voters into signing the petition.  

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told state lawmakers on Jan. 12 that her hands were tied and that those circulating the petitions are protected by First Amendment rights to mislead, lie or say whatever they want about the petition. She encouraged voters to read the petition before signing it.

“I do not have authority to take any enforcement action over the truth of what is being said,” she said. “Someone signing because they believe it’s something else, that unfortunately happens frequently.”

Pro-cannabis legalization advocates said canvassers used similar deceptive tactics in Massachusetts, where the State Ballot Law Commission rejected a challenge to an initiative’s strategies last month.