When Floridians go to the polls this November, they’ll be deciding an important question: whether to let businesses sell marijuana, as they’re currently able to do in 24 other states, including New York.

Florida’s Amendment 3 commands some powerful supporters, including a recent endorsement by former President Donald Trump.

It’s a bellwether for marijuana legalization’s prospects nationwide.

But while backers have talked up the alleged injustice of marijuana prohibition, they’ve avoided discussing the real effect of the law: making it legal to profit off pot.

Amendment 3 would permit medical dispensaries and other, future license recipients to sell weed to any adult.

That’s reason enough for Floridians—and everyone else—to be skeptical of legalization.

A legal market would make big businesses happy, which is why they’ve spent so much pushing for one.

But Floridians shouldn’t trust their communities, or their kids, in the hands of profit-hungry drug companies.

To be sure, big business wants legal weed.

Florida is the second largest state (behind Texas) without a legal market.

For marijuana businesses, which have seen market values collapse amid struggles in other states, that’s an exciting prospect.

That’s why the Amendment’s main backer, the marijuana concern Trulieve, has poured $80 million into passing Amendment 3.

That’s nearly six times what opponents of the law have spent. But it’s a small fraction of what the billion-dollar business could make off of weed in Florida.

But can Floridians trust Trulieve?

This is the company that reached a six-figure settlement after one of its Massachusetts employees died from inhaling ground marijuana dust.

The state’s cannabis commission found that Trulieve failed to comply with workplace safety requirements; it no longer operates in the state.

This is the company that the CEO’s husband, J.T. Burnette, claimed in a secretly recorded conversation, got special help in cornering the Florida medical market.

Burnette, a Tallahassee businessman facing federal prison time for corruption, told an undercover federal agent that he had worked with a state legislator to keep potential competitors from securing medical licenses.

This is the company that wants to run the recreational market in Florida. Should Floridians let it? 

The answer matters, because irresponsible marijuana legalization can create a massive mess.

The experience of other states shows as much.

Research from the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve, for example, finds that recreational legalization increases rates of addiction, chronic homelessness, and arrests by double-digit percentages. 

It also makes life a little less pleasant. Stoned employees make workplaces a little worse, and marijuana-intoxicated accidents have risen steadily as states have legalized. 

Dispensaries have been shown to lower nearby property values. And in many places, legalization produces the pervasive smell of pot smoke—a pollutant that Florida’s clean air laws don’t cover.

Legalization hurts kids, too.

It increases pediatric hospitalizations, as kids take a gummy meant for mom or dad and end up in the ER.

It increases the risk that teens will develop a “cannabis use disorder,” characterized by compulsive use in spite of negative consequences. 

Some of those kids will go on to develop psychosis and schizophrenia. 

New Yorkers know a thing or two about these problems.

Since legalization, it’s had to deal with a massive, sometimes-violent grey market, teens smoking in school, and the omnipresent smell of weed on city streets.

New York’s experience has been a warning to other states. It ought to be for Florida, too. 

When Floridians go to the polls they need to remember what they’re really voting for.

They aren’t voting to keep their fellow citizens out of prison — nobody’s there for pot anyway.

They are voting to let powerful companies sell an addictive, harmful substance at a profit. 

Floridians of good conscience can differ over whether they should smoke weed — it’s none of my business if you do.

But even those who like marijuana should be wary of mixing greed and weed. That’s a recipe for a disaster. 

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.