They want to erase
what Massachusetts built.
Don’t let them.
Question 8 would repeal adult-use cannabis in Massachusetts on November 3. The polls are tightening and the other side has a million dollars left to spend. Here is what is at stake, and what you can do about it before the vote.
What a YES vote actually does
Question 8 does not reform adult-use cannabis in Massachusetts. It repeals it.
Every licensed dispensary, cultivator and manufacturer closes or converts to medical only. The right to grow six plants in your own home goes away. 27,000 people lose their jobs. $280 million a year in public revenue disappears, along with the social equity grants built to repair the damage prohibition did to specific neighborhoods. And everyone who currently buys tested, labeled, age-verified product goes back to buying from someone who checks none of it.
Medical cannabis would survive, with new potency limits. Possession of an ounce stays legal. Everything else that 1.77 million people voted for in 2016 goes. Massachusetts would be the first state in American history to undo a regulated cannabis program by referendum, effective January 1, 2028.
It is funded by more than $3.1 million, almost all of it from a single out-of-state organization. Of the $1,625,625 they raised this year, $600 came from individual people.
The proposed law would change the type and amount of marijuana that may legally be possessed in Massachusetts by repealing the laws that legalize, regulate, and tax the retail sale of adult recreational use marijuana. It would permit persons 21 and older to possess 1 ounce or less, including no more than 5 grams of concentrate, and impose a $100 civil penalty for possession between 1 and 2 ounces. Licensed adult-use businesses could apply to become medical dispensaries. The law would take effect January 1, 2028.
Source: Secretary of the Commonwealth. Nine questions are on the ballot this year, the most since 1994. Find the number 8.
No change. Legal cannabis stays.
Ends legal adult-use retail and adds new fines.
Put a sign on every lawn
Six weeks out, the thing that moves votes is visibility. A sign on a lawn reaches a whole street for the rest of the campaign. A sticker on a car reaches every driver behind it. A shirt starts a conversation at the grocery store with someone who does not know Question 8 exists.
We are not matching $3.1 million of out-of-state money and we do not need to. But signs, stickers and gas are not free, so we are asking you to fund specific things rather than a vague pot. Pick what you want to pay for and you will know exactly where it went.
Sponsor a Yard Sign
We print it and a volunteer places it somewhere with real traffic. You fund a sign without us spending your money on a shipping box.
Ship Me a Yard Sign
An 18x24 sign with a stake, mailed to your door for your own lawn. Signs are bulky to ship, which is why this runs higher than sponsoring one.
One Bumper Sticker
Mailed to you. Every car on Route 128 is a moving billboard for the next eleven weeks.
25 Bumper Stickers
The right quantity for a shop counter, a staff room, or a weekend of tabling. Works out to $3.40 each.
100 Bumper Stickers
Built for dispensaries and businesses. Put one at every register and hand them to every customer through November. $3 each.
One Volunteer Route Day
Gas and mileage for a volunteer to spend a full day driving stickers and signs out to dispensaries across their region. This is how the material actually reaches people.
Wherever It Is Needed Most
Unrestricted, so we can move fast when a region runs out of signs or a press opportunity appears with two days notice.
Vote NO on 8 Shirt
Puts a shirt on you or on a volunteer at the Boston Freedom Rally, our upcoming walks, and every tabling event through November. Printed by our shirt sponsor, The Shirt Factory. Pick as many sizes as you need.
Become a Community Supporter or Sponsor
Two levels for people and businesses who want to do more than fund a box of stickers. Both can be combined with anything above.
Community Supporter
- ✓ A thank you and shoutout on MassCann social media
- ✓ Funds five yard signs placed across the state, or a full volunteer route day with stickers to hand out
- ✓ Open to individuals and businesses alike
Community Sponsor
- ✓ Named event sponsor of our Community Action Series walks between now and Election Day
- ✓ Your logo on printed and digital materials for both events
- ✓ Your logo under Community Sponsors on KeepCannabisLegal.com and the MassCann.org homepage through Election Day
- ✓ Everything in Community Supporter
Sponsorship covers these two events only and does not include the Boston Freedom Rally. Logo placement runs through November 3, 2026. Sponsors are recognized at every walk held after they join, and online for the full run. We will email you for your logo file after you give. Sponsorships are subject to approval and space is limited.
Contributions go to the Committee for Keep Cannabis Legal, Vote No on 8, a ballot question committee registered with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Every item you pick is money we spend on that item, and we code it that way in our books. Prefer to give without picking? Give any amount here. Contributions to a ballot question committee are not tax deductible.
Skip the shipping, grab it in person
Everything below is local pickup only in Newburyport. That is why it costs less than the shipped versions above: we are not paying postage, so neither are you. Reserve what you want, then come get it.
Yard Sign + Lawn Stake
An 18x24 sign with the stake included, ready to go straight into the ground. Same sign that costs $35 shipped.
10 Yard Signs + Stakes
A whole street. $18 each, for anyone organizing their block, their shop, or their team.
Sponsor a Yard Sign
Nothing to collect. We print it and a volunteer places it somewhere with real traffic. For people who want a sign out there but not on their own lawn.
Bumper Sticker
Take one, take twenty. Put them on your car, your water bottle, and the counter at work. Yes, the price is on purpose.
25 Bumper Stickers
For a shop counter, a staff room, or a weekend of tabling. $3 each.
100 Bumper Stickers
Built for dispensaries and businesses. One at every register, one to every customer, through November. $2.50 each.
Vote NO on 8 Shirt
Pick as many sizes as you need. $10 less than the shipped version, because you are coming to get it.
Wherever It Is Needed Most
Nothing to collect. Unrestricted, so we can move fast when a region runs out of signs or a press opportunity appears with two days notice.
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Cannot make those hours? Reserve your order anyway and email keepcannabislegal@masscann.org to arrange a time that works.
Reserve and pay online, then come by during open hours. Your order will be waiting under your name. Nothing gets mailed, so please only order what you can actually come collect. Sponsored signs and unrestricted gifts are donations, there is nothing to pick up for those.
Haverhill Walk for Cannabis
We gather on the City Hall steps at 9:30 and step off at 10:00, walking through downtown, past STEM, and finishing at the Haverhill Farmers Market.
October 17 is also the first day of early voting in Massachusetts. Walk with us in the morning, then go cast your ballot the same afternoon. The date is not a coincidence.
Show up. Speak up. Stand together.
We are announcing new walks every week between now and November 3
Haverhill is the next one on the calendar, not the last one. New dates and host cities are being locked in as fast as local organizers raise their hands. RSVP once and we will tell you the moment one lands near you, whether that is Worcester, Springfield, the South Coast or your own street.
Takes thirty seconds. One form covers every walk.
Two days on Boston Common
Two days at the 37th Annual Boston Freedom Rally. Filmed and cut by The Chabot Corp, who made it look like what it felt like. Next up is Haverhill on October 17. RSVP and walk with us.
The walk that started the series
Two miles from Lansdowne Street into Cambridge, over the Storrow Drive overpass. Haverhill is next on October 17. RSVP and walk with us.
They do not need to change your mind. They need you to stay home.
In February, opposition to this repeal stood at 63%. By August it was 55%, and support had climbed from 20% to 33%. Eight points lost in six months, before a single television ad ran.
So the plan is not persuasion. The plan is arithmetic. In 2016, when Massachusetts legalized, 3,378,801 people cast ballots in a presidential year. In the 2022 midterm, 2,511,461 did. That is 867,340 fewer voters, and 2026 is a midterm.
A repeal that loses among people who show up can still win among people who do not. Every supporter who assumes this is handled, who saw a poll in February and filed it under solved, is doing the other side's work for them. They have roughly a million dollars left to spend and eight weeks to spend it.
The margin in 2016 was 53.7% to 46.3%. Not a landslide. Neighbors convincing neighbors, and then actually turning out. That is the job again.
when we legalized
2022 midterm
February to August 2026
the last time it was a midterm
Turnout figures from the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Register by October 24, vote early from October 17, or show up November 3. Any of the three works. Doing none of them is the only way this passes.
Who is really behind this
This isn't a grassroots Massachusetts campaign. This is a nationally funded, out-of-state prohibition operation, run by Massachusetts Republican State Committee figures and announced by SAM's CEO alongside former Attorney General William Barr. The receipts are public record: the figures below come from campaign finance reports filed with OCPF on the 60th day before the election, first reported by Talking Joints Memo.
All of It from One Out-of-State Group
Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a Virginia-based prohibitionist organization, put $1.55M behind the 2025 signature drive and another $1,625,625 into the campaign from January through August 2026. That is more than $3.1 million from a single out-of-state source.
What Actual People Gave
Of the $1,625,625 the repeal campaign raised in 2026, exactly $600 came from individual donors. Everything else came from SAM Action. One organization with a checkbook is not a movement.
Still Left to Spend on You
They have already spent roughly $750,000 this year, mostly on media and strategy consultants, and head into Election Day with about a million dollars still on hand. Expect to see a lot of it on your screen between now and November 3.
Legislature Rejected It
Exactly one person testified in favor of the repeal at the March 2026 State House hearing. One. The Special Joint Committee reviewed it, recommended no action, and cited “substantial concerns regarding the structure, scope, and anticipated impacts.” The Legislature let its deadline pass without acting.
They have three million dollars.
We have the workforce.
An independent project called We Work Here is documenting who actually does this work, one team photo at a time. Not stock images. Real crews at real Massachusetts addresses: lab technicians in Westfield, cultivators in Taunton, budtenders in Lynn, a veteran-owned family business in Amesbury that supports more than a hundred households.
Every profile names the company, its locations, its current team total, and links to its website. Some workers have added notes in their own words about what the job makes possible and what losing it would cost them. A molecular biologist who left teaching to run a testing lab. A woman who says legal cannabis is the reason she can leave her house.
Question 8 is usually argued in numbers: revenue, jobs, market size. This is the same argument with faces attached, and it is far harder to vote against.
We Work Here and repeal.fail are an independent project of Jason Reposa of Medway, with costs paid by Good Feels Inc. They are not affiliated with, funded by, directed by, or coordinated with this committee or any ballot question committee. We link to their work because it is worth seeing, not because we run it.
Their Claims vs. the Facts
Prohibitionists rely on distortion. Here's how to push back.
"Legalization caused youth cannabis use to skyrocket."
Reported teen use stayed near historic lows nationally in 2025 (Monitoring the Future). A 13-state study of 2.86 million inpatient records found no consistent rise in cannabis-use-disorder diagnoses among 10 to 17 year olds after legalization (International Journal of Drug Policy). Dispensaries check ID twice, at the door and at the register (935 CMR 500.140). Street sellers check zero times.
"Massachusetts voters want this gone."
54% of Massachusetts voters view legalization positively and only 22% see it negatively (UMass Amherst and WCVB, August 2026). A majority still oppose the repeal. What voters want gone is the illicit market, not the licensed one.
"This is a grassroots public health campaign."
Of the $1,625,625 they raised in 2026, all but $600 came from Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a Virginia-based organization. Add the 2025 signature drive and it is more than $3.1 million from one out-of-state source. Campaign leaders are MA Republican State Committee figures. This is astroturf with a national agenda.
"Repealing legalization would protect public health."
The regulated market is winning. In 2023 people reported getting 84% of their cannabis from legal sources, up from 56% in 2019 (Cannabis Control Commission). Repeal hands all of that straight back to the illicit market, which does no testing for pesticides, heavy metals or mold (935 CMR 500.160) and checks nobody's ID.
"Medical cannabis will survive, so it's fine."
Medical cannabis also faces new potency restrictions. And 27,000+ workers in the adult-use supply chain have no medical market to pivot to. These are real Massachusetts families, not a footnote.
"We're going to win this easily."
Opposition dropped from 63% in February to 55% in August, and one in ten voters is still undecided. Low midterm turnout and a nine-question ballot are exactly how a minority position wins. Nothing about this is settled.
"It only affects the businesses, not regular people."
It ends home grow, adds new fines for adults carrying more than an ounce, adds fines, drug programs, and community service for young adults, and puts 27,000+ jobs at risk. That is regular people.
"The 78,000 signatures show real voter demand."
Residents filed complaints saying they were told they were signing for affordable housing or fentanyl prevention, not a cannabis repeal. The state said the evidence did not meet the legal bar to act. Paid signature gathering by a Missouri firm is not a groundswell.
The road to November 3
Nine statewide questions are on the ballot this year, the most since 1994. Ours is Question 8. Find the number 8 and vote NO. Massachusetts has no same-day registration, so these dates matter.
Early voting opens
Runs through October 30, hours set by each city and town. We are walking in Haverhill that morning.
Walk with usLast day to register
Ten days before the election. Miss it and you cannot vote on Question 8 at all.
Register or checkMail ballot deadline
Applications due by 5:00 PM. Return your ballot to your town clerk, a drop box, or an early voting site. Mail ballots cannot be dropped at the polls on Election Day.
Election Day
Polls open 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM in most communities. Vote NO on Question 8.
Find your polling placeMassachusetts would be the first state in history to undo a regulated cannabis program by referendum. If Question 8 passes, repeal takes effect January 1, 2028.
What can I do as one person?
A repeal campaign funded by more than $3.1 million of out-of-state money is betting that ordinary people will not pay attention until it is too late. None of this takes a title, a budget, or a free weekend.
Check your own registration
Before anything else. If you moved, changed your name, or have not voted in a while, verify it now rather than in the parking lot on November 3. The deadline is October 24. Check in 60 seconds.
Tell five people it is on the ballot
Most Massachusetts voters still have no idea Question 8 exists. Five conversations from you, then five from each of them, moves more votes than any ad we could afford. Start with the people who assume this is settled.
Post it, and keep posting it
One post is a whisper. A post a week until November is a presence. Share this page, share the numbers, share why it matters to you specifically. Use #VoteNoOn8 and tag @masscannorg so we can amplify you.
Put it where strangers see it
A yard sign, a bumper sticker, a shirt at the grocery store. Merch is not swag here, it is a conversation starter that works while you are doing something else. Order signs, stickers and shirts.
Knock doors or make calls
The single highest-impact hour you can give. Direct voter contact moves people that advertising never reaches, and we will train you before you talk to anyone. Volunteer to canvass or phone bank.
Show up somewhere in person
Haverhill on October 17, or whichever walk lands closest to you next. Crowds are what press photographs and what legislators notice, and a photo of twelve people reads very differently from a photo of two hundred. RSVP and we will tell you where.
Correct the record when you hear it
You will hear that youth use exploded, that this is a grassroots health campaign, that voters regret 2016. None of that survives contact with the data. Take the facts with you.
Vote all the way down the ballot
Nine questions this year, the most since 1994, and Question 8 is near the bottom. Vote early from October 17, by mail, or on November 3. Just do not stop before 8. See every date.
Every number on this page has a source
We are asking you to vote against a repeal funded by more than $3 million. The least we owe you is the paperwork. These are the public documents behind the claims above. Read them and decide for yourself.
The measure itself
- Question 8 official ballot summaryAs provided by the Secretary of the Commonwealth
- H.5002, the repeal billThe full text, including what is repealed and the January 1, 2028 effective date
- Special Joint Committee report, May 2026The majority recommended no action, citing concerns about structure, scope and impacts
- Ballotpedia: full initiative timelineNon-partisan summary of the language and signature process
- Foley Hoag: legislative hearing analysisLegal read on the March 2026 committee hearing
Who is paying for it
- OCPF ballot question finance reportsThe filings themselves, for both sides, searchable
- Talking Joints Memo: what each side raisedReporting on the 60th-day filings, including the $600 from individuals
What it would cost
- Cannabis Control Commission: revenue dataState and local revenue from adult-use sales
- MassBudget economic testimonyExpert analysis of the revenue impact of repeal
- Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund, FY25 reportThe grants the repeal would eliminate
Whether it is working
- UMass Amherst and WCVB poll, August 202655% oppose, 33% support, 800 registered voters, margin of error 4.4%
- Marijuana Moment: coverage of the August pollFull crosstabs and the February comparison
- Monitoring the Future, 2025National teen substance use near historic lows
- International Journal of Drug Policy13-state study, 2.86M inpatient records, adolescent cannabis-use-disorder diagnoses
Voting
- Upcoming elections and deadlinesSecretary of the Commonwealth: Oct 24 registration, Oct 17 to 30 early voting, Oct 27 mail ballot applications
- Register to vote, or check your status
- Find your polling place
- Massachusetts turnout statisticsThe 2016 and 2022 figures behind the turnout gap above
- Find your legislator
If you find something on this page that a source does not support, tell us at keepcannabislegal@masscann.org and we will correct it. We would rather be corrected than be wrong in public.
Massachusetts voted for legal cannabis in 2016.
We built this. We get to keep it.
Is your organization in this fight? Get in touch.
Paid for by the Committee for Keep Cannabis Legal, Vote No on 8
Join a walk near you
RSVP for the Haverhill walk, or tell us where you are and we will let you know when one lands near you. If you want to help organize one in your own city, say so here and we will get you what you need.
RSVP so we can count you in and prepare for the correct numbers. Not required - just helpful. Feel free to show up last minute, bring extra people, and spread the word!