Massachusetts voters were asked a question no state had ever been asked before: should we take legal recreational cannabis back?
On Tuesday, November 3, they answered no — and it wasn’t close.
About 75.6% of Massachusetts voters opposed Question 8, the measure to repeal recreational marijuana sales. Only 24.4% supported it. Out of 351 cities and towns, just one — Dover, a small community in Norfolk County southwest of Boston — voted in favor of repeal, 52.6% to 47.4%.
Question 8 would have repealed the laws authorizing recreational marijuana businesses and eliminated the existing legal framework for recreational home cultivation, while leaving medical marijuana legal. Adults 21 and older would still have been allowed to possess up to one ounce.
The result is even more striking ten years after Massachusetts voters first approved recreational legalization in 2016, when 53.7% supported it. The margin against repeal in 2026 is substantially larger than the margin by which legalization was originally approved.
And it wasn’t just the big cities. Support for preserving recreational sales extended across smaller towns and suburban municipalities too. Dover was the lone exception among communities with reported results.
The town-by-town results are still preliminary, and some municipalities have not yet reported complete totals. The Secretary of the Commonwealth will publish official results following local certification, so Dover’s status as the only community supporting repeal could change — though that currently appears unlikely.
We covered this fight before the vote, when Massachusetts lawmakers urged voters to reject Question 8. Now the voters have spoken: once people have legal cannabis, they don’t want to give it back.
Kentuckians haven’t even gotten that chance yet.
Kentucky is a non-ballot-initiative state, which means voters can’t put a measure on the ballot themselves. Only the General Assembly can send a constitutional amendment to the voters — and so far, it hasn’t. That’s why KCFC’s petition exists: to show lawmakers that Kentuckians want the vote. The proposal mirrors HB225 — adults 21 and older could possess up to one ounce and cultivate, harvest, and store up to five plants for personal use, free of criminal sanction, with the General Assembly regulating production, processing, and sale.
More than 10,900 Kentuckians have already signed. Massachusetts just proved that when voters get a say, they keep legal cannabis. Kentucky voters deserve that same say.
Sign the petition to put cannabis decriminalization on the Kentucky ballot: https://www.change.org/LetKentuckyVote
And drop your county to show support across all 120 counties: https://legalizekentucky.com/drop-your-county
Source: The Marijuana Herald, “Only One of Massachusetts’ 351 Cities and Towns Backs Marijuana Repeal” (Nov. 5, 2026): https://themarijuanaherald.com/2026/11/only-one-of-massachusetts-351-cities-and-towns-backs-marijuana-repeal/
#LetKentuckyVote #LegalizeKentucky #Massachusetts #Question8 #CannabisReform #Kentucky #HB225 #DecriminalizeKentucky #ElectionsMatter
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