Despite fraud allegations, campaign to end $1.6 billion Massachusetts marijuana industry likely to proceed

Elections fraud allegations lodged against the campaign to end Massachusetts’ $1.65 billion adult-use cannabis market may be difficult to prove.

Even if the claims that signature-gatherers for a Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts deliberately misled voters are sustained, they may not be enough stop cannabis sales recriminalization from going on the ballot, according to the Statehouse News Service.

Affiliated with state Republican Party operatives, the coalition has since last summer been attempting to qualify a voter initiative for the November ballot that would ban adult-use marijuana sales in Massachusetts.

If Petition 1E qualifies for the ballot and is approved by a majority of voters, medical marijuana sales would continue, and personal use of cannabis would remain legal.

However, it would represent the first rollback of voter-approved adult-use cannabis legalization at the ballot.

Prominent national anti-cannabis organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana recently asserted it was putting “multimillion dollar support” behind the measure.

But nobody has claimed responsibility for the multiple accounts of campaign workers allegedly convincing voters to sign petitions by lying to them about what the ballot initiative actually does.

On Jan. 2, Boston attorney Thomas Kiley filed a formal challenge to the question, alleging the fraudulent conduct, as Statehouse News reported.

He filed the objection on behalf of his daughter-in-law, who says she signed the petition under the impression it was for affordable housing.

The state Ballot Law Commission heard Kiley’s objection on Monday.

Kiley was given until the end of business Tuesday to show an “offer of proof” backing up his claims.

Kiley did not respond to a request for comment from MJBizDaily.

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Last month, Secretary of State William Galvin’s office certified 78,301 signatures, according to State House News. That’s enough for the campaign to proceed.

A total of 3,727 signatures would have to be invalidated to halt the effort. And canceling a signature must “be based on evidence,” Galvin said last week.

In response to Kiley, Patrick Strawbridge, an attorney for the campaign, submitted an affidavit from lead sponsor Caroline Cunningham, a member of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee.

She denies all “knowledge of any effort to mislead any potential signer” and claims that “at no point were circulators instructed to behave in misleading or deceptive ways,” StateHouse News reported.

Though critics say the claims show how desperate opponents of legalized cannabis are to re-criminalize the industry, courts have found that misleading voters is a First Amendment-protected activity.