A majority of Florida voters who turned out for the 2024 election want legalized recreational marijuana and enshrined abortion protections in their state. However, they won’t be getting them.
Why?
The reason why dates back to the early aughts, when a law prohibiting coffining or tethering pregnant pigs got on the books. That passed in 2002 and four years later proponents of an amendment raising the threshold to pass a constitutional amendment from 50% to 60%, according to Axios.
While those who supported the measure argued that it would protect the Florida Constitution from superfluous additions, opponents said it would be a hit for direct democracy and grassroots movements. When it passed it only got around 58% of the vote. Yes – that’s under the 60% bar that the measure itself would establish.
Keep that number in mind in relation to these stats: with 99% of votes reported as of Thursday, 55.9% of voters were in favor of passing a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana and 57.2% of voters were in favor of enshrining abortion protections, per the Associated Press.
Medical marijuana will still be legal in the state, and the Tampa Bay Times said that marijuana companies may try to push again for recreational marijuana to be legalized later down the line. As for abortion, the measure’s failure means that the state’s six-week abortion ban and other abortion laws stand.
Most women find out they are pregnant when they are around four to seven weeks along, according to the American Pregnancy Association, giving them little time to seek an abortion if in Florida. Its law has been criticized, and even former Republican President Donald Trump, the expected president elect of the U.S., has said that it is “too harsh.”
“Florida is one of the first states where abortion rights failed at the ballot box in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade,” said the Orlando Sentinel. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the landmark decision in June 2022, a cascade of restrictive laws popped up across the country.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who challenged Trump this year during the Republican primaries to little success, has been campaigning hard against both Amendment 3 (the one to legalize marijuana) and Amendment 4 (the one to enshrine abortion protections). He frequently leveraged the power of the government and used taxpayer dollars to defeat the measures, said the outlet.