Move over, lottery: Alabama residents could soon make short drive to Florida to buy marijuana

Since Florida began its lottery in 1988, it has been routine for many Baldwin County residents to make a short trip into the neighboring state to buy lottery or scratch-off tickets at a convenience store.

That same short trip could continue six months after the Nov. 5 election, but for another vice: Legalized marijuana.

If voters in the Sunshine State approve Amendment 3, Florida will become the first Southern state to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use.

For Alabama residents living in coastal Alabama and the Wiregrass – whose counties are near the Florida state line — it could soon mean a short drive to purchase marijuana and to do so without needing a medical excuse.

“People from the Yellowhammer State will be able to stop off at a dispensary before spending their day at the beach,” said Kevin Caldwell, Southeast legislative manager with the Marijuana Policy Project. “Six months after (the election), anyone 21 years and older will be able to go into a dispensary and purchase (marijuana products).”

Alabama residents can’t vote in the election, and legalizing marijuana for recreational use in Florida will be challenging. In Florida, a citizen initiative requires 60% approval to adopt, and recent polling shows Amendment 3 at around 56% support.

“Any amendment, no matter how innocuous, faces a tough time getting to 60%,” said Robert Jarvis, a constitutional law professor of law at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Rising concerns

The election in Florida is drawing nationwide attention and has raised eyebrows among some conservative leaders along the Alabama-Florida state line where the closest physical dispensary for recreational marijuana purchases is in Cherokee, North Carolina – about a six-hour drive from Dothan, or a 200-mile trip from Fort Payne.

If Amendment 3 is adopted in Florida, the closest existing dispensary will be around 11 miles east of Seminole, in Baldwin County.

“We’re very concerned if Amendment 3 passes in the state of Florida,” said Huey “Hoss” Mack, the former Baldwin County Sheriff and current executive director of the Alabama Sheriffs Association. “It would create a lot of confusion about individuals who may be travelling across state line to purchase recreational marijuana and coming back into the state of Alabama.”

The issue? While it would be legal to use and possess in Florida – if the amendment passes – it’s still illegal in Alabama.

“I personally am not for recreational use of marijuana and would have concerns if neighboring states like Florida or Georgia passed it,” said Dothan Mayor Mark Saliba, whose Wiregrass city is the largest in Southeast Alabama that is a short drive into Florida.

He has plenty of questions. “Would it lead to the next step of legalizing it (in Alabama)? How do they monitor the buying of it? Would it be easy for someone from nearby cities to have citizens buying it and bringing it to our cities? Crime is a strong concern for our state, we cannot allow us to get a reputation of an unsafe place to live. Would that add to that?”

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon, and Alabama State Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, said they also have plenty of questions and concerns about recreational use allowed in the neighboring state.

“All of Alabama laws are still in effect and that using that drug recreationally in Colorado, Florida or wherever you get it will get you into hot water in Alabama whether you fail a drug test with your employer or get caught from a law enforcement officer,” Elliott said.

Alabama does have a burgeoning market for hemp-derived products like delta-8 and delta-9 candies and vapes. The products have the same psychoactive molecule found in marijuana, but these products are derived from hemp plants and refined in ways with low amounts of THC that producers believe they adhere to the Farm Bill, and do not violate federal law. THC is short for tetrahydrocannabinol, and is the main psychoactive component of a marijuana plant.

None of those products are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the products are largely unregulated.

They are also becoming increasingly popular among teens; Alabama state law prohibits their sale to people under age 21.

Florida battle

Florida, if more than 60% of voters back Amendment 3, will become the 25th state to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes.

The state also represents a rapid push for marijuana legalization since Colorado became the first to do so in 2012, when 55.3% of voters backed the first initiative to legalize marijuana.

The Florida legislature, in 2008, raised the support threshold for citizen-backed initiatives from a simple majority to 60%.

Alabama does not allow for citizen initiatives.

Jarvis said that Florida voters, including Republican voters in a state that has increasingly become red, are more focused on another hot button topic next week through Amendment 4, which is the proposal to legalize abortion.

“Indeed, much of the heat that normally would have been trained on Amendment 3 by conservatives is going to Amendment 4, allowing Amendment 3 to basically fly under the radar,” Jarvis said. “If Amendment 3 ever has a chance to pass, it is this year.”

Big bucks are also flooding into Florida to push forward Amendment 3. Trulieve, one of the state’s largest medical marijuana companies that has multiple dispensaries in the Pensacola area, has spent over $90 million to get Amendment 3 passed. The company’s support is flowing to Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee that is supporting the legalization of recreational marijuana.

Caldwell said $132 million has been spent on the amendment, making it the most expensive marijuana ballot initiative in U.S. history, and elevating the stakes even higher for Amendment 3’s passage.

“Almost every state that has the ballot initiative process does 50 percent,” Caldwell said, predicting that if Amendment 3 falls a few percentage points short of passage, it will likely not resurface for some time.

“It’s because of the costs associated with this,” Caldwell said.

DeSantis vs. Trump

The issue is also splitting Republicans, including two of the top GOP candidates in this year’s presidential contest.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a vocal opponent of Amendment 3, and recently joined Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons for a news conference in Pensacola to push voters against the measure. DeSantis argued that only state licensed entities will have the ability to manufacture, grow and sell marijuana – and no one else. He also said the entities that operate the dispensaries will have immunity from civil and criminal liabilities.

Proponents have Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump on their side. Trump, who votes in Florida, came out in support of Amendment 3 in September, saying if he wins a second term in office he would back “states’ rights to pass marijuana laws.”

Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug that is illegal on the federal level.

Decriminalization

Caldwell said in Alabama, polling shows support from the public for recreational use of marijuana. A Civiq’s state-by-state poll from last year showed 61% of Alabama residents support legalization, while 27% said they did not. Another 12% were undecided.

But polling has also been high for years in support of a statewide lottery to raise revenues for education, and lawmakers have yet to bring the issue back to voters for consideration since a lottery initiative was defeated in 1999.

Alabama lawmakers adopted a medical marijuana program in 2021, but it has been marred in an ongoing legal dispute and the program has yet to begin.

Alabama lawmakers have expressed no interest for legalizing recreational marijuana, even as smalls shops selling unregulated hemp-derived products such as delta-8 and delta-9 continue to flourish.

Caldwell said the state remains the only one that criminalizes marijuana possession of any amount for personal use. Efforts to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana – 2 ounces or less – have gone nowhere in the Alabama Legislature, though bills are often introduced each year.

The continued enforcement of marijuana offenses has generated attention in Alabama. A 2018 Southern Poverty Law Center report illustrated the racial discrepancies in marijuana arrests in which Black people were approximately four times as likely as white people to be arrested for possession, and five times as likely to be arrested for felony possession.

“People will consume cannabis whether it’s legal or illegal and, of course, we’ve proven in state after state that the criminal justice system is incapable of equitably enforcing these laws,” Caldwell said.

He added, “In Alabama, getting any headway (to decriminalize marijuana) … it’s one of the hardest states. They must consider that God made a mistake when he made this plant. It’s the only plant in its natural form people continue to criminalize.”

Gateway drug

Law enforcement and lawmakers in Alabama worry that widespread use of marijuana could lead to additional harms and become a so-called “gateway drug” that leads to the consumption of other narcotics, a concept that has long been debated among lawmakers and researchers.

Mack said he’s concerned about the campaign ads in Florida that depict marijuana as harmless.

“Particularly in the advertisements within the state of Florida, there’s been a lot of discussion about marijuana being a harmless drug, a drug that has caused no deaths, and has little effect on the general population,” Mack said. “We disagree with that stance and firmly believe that marijuana still remains a gateway drug to other narcotics.”

Caldwell said he doubts there will be a “rush of people who will decide they want to try cannabis because it’s legal.” He said within two-to-three years of legalization, people will cease using marijuana through illicit means and will “start going through the regulated marketplace.”

Other concerns exist. Kennon, of Orange Beach, said in other states – namely, Colorado – where marijuana use is legal, have seen its share of problems.

In Colorado and other states, concerns have risen over an increase in fatal automobile crashes involving people driving impaired from marijuana consumption. One report showed that marijuana-related traffic accidents requiring emergency room treatments rose 475% between 2010 and 2021.

“For me, there is nothing constructive with recreational marijuana being legalized,” Kennon said.

He said if Florida legalizes it, the situation within six months would be akin to “no different than your next door neighbor having a junky, unkept yard. It affects you. If we have a marijuana outflow from the Panhandle of Florida, yes it bothers me.”

Revenue source

Caldwell said if enough Florida voters pass Amendment 3, other Southern states like Louisiana and Mississippi could follow suit. He said Georgia is likely to be more challenging to adopt a recreational use program.

But coastal Alabama residents could be surrounded by states with legalized weed, creating a similar situation as gambling and lottery where millions in potential revenues have been funneled to the nearby states in support of their schools and roads.

Those arguments were raised anew during this past spring legislative session on a gambling and lottery measure that fell a single vote short of passage in the Alabama Senate and died.

Jess Brown, a retired political science professor at Athens State University and a longtime political observer of state politics, said he believes the lack of gambling and lottery in Alabama will be a campaign issue in 2026 when state legislative and constitutional offices are up for election.

“I think there is frustration out there for easy money for road and schools, and that the Legislature will do anything (to protect special interests),” Brown said.

The frustrations could extend to marijuana, where states that have legalized and regulated recreational use are seeing a windfall in revenues.

Some of those states do not have neighboring states that have legalized recreational use. In Michigan, from 2019-2023, the state collected more than $1 billion from a 10% excise tax that is on top of the state’s 6% sales tax for the recreational sales of marijuana, according to a Marijuana Policy Project analysis. Of that, 35% went to schools; 35% to roads; and 15% each to city and county governments.

In Illinois, more than $1.8 billion has been collected from taxes on recreational use of marijuana since 2020. Missouri only began its recreational use program in early 2023, and it’s already generated $106 million.

New Mexico’s program began with a 12% excise tax on retail sales, and more than $122 million has been raised from recreational sales.

Caldwell said New Mexico’s shops are popular with Texans, where recreational marijuana use is prohibited.

“You have west Texans who roll across the New Mexican border and spend $1 million a day at those dispensaries,” he said. “Those dispensaries were not set up to facilitate those small towns in New Mexico. They were recognizing a demand across the border and the people who were crossing that border.”

The same can be said in Florida, which could benefit from anywhere between $2 billion to $5 billion a year from recreational marijuana sales.

And that includes money coming in from Alabama residents.

The estimated revenue for Florida represents enough money to construct the entire Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project – without having to assess a toll on users.

A final excise tax rate would be determined by Florida lawmakers if Amendment 3 passes.

“That’s a lot of nice, new highways, or however they want to spend it,” Caldwell said.