DeSantis, hemp industry align to fight recreational marijuana amendment

Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state Republican Party and the burgeoning Florida hemp industry are joining forces to defeat a proposal on this November’s ballot to legalize recreational marijuana.

In early June, DeSantis vetoed a bill that could have put large swaths of the hemp industry out of business, in part, by making key cannabinoids illegal. And now, the industry is contributing both to DeSantis’ political committee and to the Republican Party of Florida to work against the recreational marijuana proposal that is largely backed by the state and nation’s largest marijuana company, Trulieve.

But the alliance is less of a coordinated effort and more of a natural occurrence, said J.D. McCormick, president of one of the state’s largest hemp groups, Florida Healthy Alternatives Association.

“Without Governor DeSantis, the hemp industry right now would be illegal in Florida. And then Trulieve would go on to develop a monopoly” should the marijuana amendment pass, McCormick said. “It’s just the natural course of events. Now that we’re alive and still here, we’re going to try to fight them” on the amendment.

Florida Healthy Alternatives is largely fighting the marijuana amendment by raising money for the state Republican Party’s Vote No campaign, McCormick said. Both the state Republican Party chairman and executive director are Florida Healthy Alternatives lobbyists.

McCormick described the dynamic between the hemp industry and Trulieve as a kind of David and Goliath situation, with his group representing mostly small businesses under threat from Trulieve. He said the passage of the recreational marijuana amendment would likely “squeeze” the hemp industry — which sells marijuana-adjacent products like delta-8 joints, gummies and vapes — out of business.

McCormick said Trulieve supported the passage of the hemp bill, which similarly harmed the hemp industry. DeSantis said the same in a June news conference. State House records show Capital City Consulting filed a disclosure that they may lobby on the House companion bill on behalf of Trulieve, but Nick Iarossi, co-owner of the consulting firm, said they never took a position on the bill nor lobbied on it. He said it’s common for lobbyists to register on a bill they are monitoring.

“Trulieve is laser focused on bringing safe, legal marijuana to adults in Florida,” said Trulieve Spokesperson Steve Vancore in a statement. “Our goal is to end criminal arrests for simple possession charges and eliminate dangerous, unregulated products from the market. Period.”

DeSantis’ office said in an email that the governor vetoed the hemp bill because it “would impose debilitating regulatory burdens on small businesses, as he made clear in his veto letter,” not because the governor made some kind of deal with the hemp industry.

Evan Power, who is both the Republican Party of Florida’s chairman and a Florida Healthy Alternatives lobbyist, said much of the same.

“There was no deal on the legislation. We obviously were trying to work to get the bill vetoed to protect small businesses and were glad the governor did veto it,” said Power.

The Republican Party of Florida has taken a formal position against the marijuana amendment and Power said that the Vote No campaign is underway: “We have material out to our counties now to oppose it and we will be active in opposing” it.

An alliance emerges

Florida Healthy Alternatives hired Power and Republican Party of Florida Executive Director Bill Helmich in January to lobby for the hemp organization during the recent legislative session.

When lawmakers passed the bill restricting hemp products this year, some argued they had not anticipated the industry to develop the way it has. (The 2018 Farm Bill made hemp legal by removing it from marijuana’s definition in the Controlled Substances Act, and in 2019 the Legislature greenlit regulation of it.)

House bill sponsor Rep. Tommy Gregory, a Republican from Lakewood Ranch, said he and his colleagues had been “duped” into believing the hemp market would be largely used for industrial purposes like making textiles.

Instead, Gregory said, “they’re using hemp products to make intoxicating substances.”

After the Legislature passed the hemp measure, Power set up a meeting between McCormick and the governor’s office in April, McCormick said.

“It was informational,” McCormick said. “I laid out all my concerns.”

McCormick also spearheaded a campaign that culminated with hemp consumers, distributors, farmers and retailers sending the governor 14,000 handwritten letters asking him to veto the bill, he said. The governor’s office said it also received 7,651 emails opposing the bill, and just 65 supporting it.

Last month, DeSantis vetoed the bill, stating in his letter to Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd that it would “introduce dramatic disruption and harm to many small retail manufacturing businesses in Florida — businesses that have emerged due to recent legislation paving the way for the commercial use of hemp.”

DeSantis elaborated on his veto of the bill at a June news conference in Miami.

“The marijuana industry wanted this hemp bill. They wanted to curtail that industry and they want to be able to get this Amendment 3 (recreational marijuana) passed,” DeSantis said. “The problem with that is the entire state will smell like marijuana if that passed.”

DeSantis continued about the marijuana amendment: “This thing needs to go down. It needs to go down hard. … But I wouldn’t say that was the primary (reason for vetoing the hemp bill). I’d say the primary (reason) was I felt an obligation to protect Florida small businesses.”

After DeSantis vetoed the bill, hemp executives pledged to raise $5 million to fight the marijuana amendment, CBS News reported Thursday. The report was based on messages shared on a WhatsApp message group known as Save Florida Hemp.

On June 25, Apopka-based hemp grower Patrick O’Brien donated $100,000 to DeSantis’ political committee established, in part, to fight the recreational marijuana amendment, campaign finance records show. O’Brien couldn’t be reached for comment.

McCormick, the president of the hemp group Florida Healthy Alternatives, said O’Brien wasn’t a member of the association but was an acquaintance of his.

“It seems like he has a hemp business that’s fighting for their lives,” McCormick said. “Most of the members of our association that we fight on behalf of have a very similar story.”