A seven-figure campaign to end Massachusetts’ adult-use cannabis program and recriminalize personal cultivation has yet to appeal to the state’s voters, according to a new survey.
Just 20% of likely voters in the commonwealth support the 2026 ballot proposal to wipe out the state’s $1.6 billion adult-use marketplace, while 63% oppose (48% strongly/15% somewhat) the measure, according a Bay State Poll conducted last month by the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Survey Center under the university’s States of Opinion Project.
The UNH pollsters surveyed 670 Massachusetts residents, including 620 likely voters, asking their opinions on six ballot proposals. The cannabis prohibition petition was the only one that a majority of respondents opposed.
“Massachusetts voters may be faced with several prominent ballot questions in the November general election, and Bay Staters are generally supportive of same-day voter registration, decreasing the state income tax, and establishing rent control, while a majority oppose repealing laws which legalized the use of marijuana,” the survey’s authors wrote.
Nine percent of survey respondents were neutral or had no opinion on the cannabis prohibition petition, while 7% didn’t know or were unsure if they supported or opposed the petition, which prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) funded to the tune of $1.55 million in Q4 2025.
In addition to eliminating licensed adult-use cannabis dispensary, cultivation and other commercial operations, the petition, “An Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy,” outlaws residents from growing plants at home. However, possessing up to 1 ounce of cannabis or 5 grams of concentrate would remain decriminalized for those 21 and older, potentially fueling the unregulated market.
“There’s a group that coalesces around the idea that we moved too far too fast with marijuana legalization, and that it’s not working well for Massachusetts,” Wendy Wakeman, spokesperson for the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, told Cannabis Business Times in October.
While Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s election division staff notified the campaign’s organizers in December that they filed enough valid signatures (78,301) to advance to the next stage of the initiative process – legislative consideration – the group that “coalesces” around prohibition does not represent the majority across multiple demographic groups.
According to the UNH Survey Center:
- Party ID: Democrats (73% oppose/12% support), Republicans (42% oppose/41% support), and Independents (69% oppose/22% support) would all reject the proposal.
- Age: 18-to-34-year-olds (64% oppose/14% support), 35-to-49-year-olds (73% oppose/11% support), 50-to-64-year-olds (60% oppose/33% support), and those 65 and older (54% oppose/29% support) would all reject the proposal.
- Gender: Men (60% oppose/23% support) and women (67% oppose/18% support) would both reject the proposal.
- Level of Education: High school or less (51% oppose/23% support), tech school/some college (75% oppose/15% support), college graduates (72% oppose/20% support), and postgraduate work (69% oppose/24% support) would all reject the proposal.
The poll results come after controversy surrounded the campaign’s signature-gathering “tactics,” with the Massachusetts Cannabis Business Association (MCBA) accusing the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts in October of trickery and deception.
“Online news, social media, and the personal experiences of multiple voters across Massachusetts clearly demonstrate that these for-hire, out-of-state signature crews are using deceptive tactics to trick people into signing the petitions needed for the cannabis repeal questions to appear on the ballot,” MCBA President and CEO David O’Brien said.
The association pointed to social media postings and videos, claiming that signature-gatherers were using fake cover sheets for unrelated ballot petitions and misrepresenting the proposal’s intent to dupe their petition signers.
In January, the Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission determined that there was no proof that the campaign tricked voters, overruling an objection filed against the initiative petition.
“The objector’s call that the unsupported allegations contained in the objection ‘raise serious questions about the petition’s integrity that warrant further scrutiny from the commission itself’ rings hollow given that absolutely no admissible evidence has been presented or offered supporting the allegations made,” the commission wrote in the Jan. 22 decision.
With the campaign collecting enough valid signatures to advance, the Massachusetts Legislature has until May 5 to consider enacting the proposal legislatively. If state lawmakers don’t take up the prohibition proposal, then the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts would have until July 1 to collect another 12,429 signatures to secure a position on the November ballot.
Massachusetts voters passed their state’s adult-use cannabis legalization initiative with a 54% majority in the 2016 election. The commonwealth was the first state east of Colorado to launch licensed dispensary sales in November 2018.
