Massachusetts voters keep adult-use cannabis sales and home cultivation legal
Massachusetts voters rejected a proposal Tuesday to end licensed adult-use cannabis sales and eliminate legal home cultivation, preserving a market that recorded more than $1.65 billion in sales last year.
About 76% voted against Question 8 and 24% supported it in unofficial returns.
The November 3 vote comes a decade after Massachusetts voters approved adult-use legalization in 2016.
Question 8 would have repealed the laws governing adult-use retail sales, including the provisions that license and tax those sales, starting January 1, 2028. It also would have ended legal home cultivation of cannabis.
The proposal would have kept the medical marijuana program and limited the Cannabis Control Commission’s authority to that market. Adult-use licensees would have been able to apply for expedited medical dispensary licensing and sell their remaining adult-use inventory to medical dispensaries.
The state’s fiscal analysis put fiscal year 2025 tax receipts from adult-use sales at about $280 million for the state and $50 million for municipalities.
The Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts argued in the state voter guide that commercial sales had created public health and safety problems.
Operators and advocates, as well as The Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition, rebuked that statement, saying that ending licensed sales would move consumers toward an illicit market where products are sold without the testing and labeling requirements that apply to licensed businesses.
The vote leaves in place a separate overhaul signed by Governor Maura Healey this year.
That law increased the adult possession limit, raised the number of retail licenses one owner can hold from three to six, and authorized license categories for on-site consumption, event-based use, and research.
Separately, Haverhill voters weighed in on where cannabis can be consumed. The city’s Question 10, which asked whether to allow licensed on-site consumption, drew 12,559 votes in favor and 10,471 against in unofficial results reported by WHAV.
The local vote clears a municipal step for businesses seeking to operate under state social consumption rules, which took effect in January.
