Bay State voters legalized recreational cannabis a decade ago, opening the door for a $10 billion marijuana industry to grow in Massachusetts. That industry could crumble if Question 8 passes on Election Day.
A “yes” vote on Question 8 supports repealing the laws that legalize, regulate and tax recreational marijuana sales, ending those sales and home cultivation on Jan. 1, 2028.
That’s why dispensary owners across the state, such as Peter Gallagher, CEO and co-founder of Insa, are urging people to vote “no.”
Insa owns recreational and medical cannabis dispensaries in Easthampton and Springfield, with other locations in Salem and Avon. If the question passes, Gallagher says it would jeopardize his business and be a major step backward, eliminating thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in tax revenue for the state and municipalities and returning recreational cannabis to an unregulated market.
“I don’t really understand what is being accomplished at all from this initiative,” Gallagher said in an interview with the Gazette inside Insa’s Easthampton dispensary, one of the first to open in Massachusetts. “I don’t know why you’d want to go back in time.”
In 2016, Massachusetts became the sixth state to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, prompting the state to form the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) to regulate the substance. In fiscal 2026, retailers contributed an estimated $330 million in tax revenue to local and state coffers, according to the state Department of Revenue.
Medical distribution would not be affected if the question passes, and possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana and 5 grams of concentrated products would stay legal for people over 21. Home cultivation would be repealed and recriminalized.
No changes to the law occur if the measure fails.
Preliminary numbers show a larger portion of voters are on Gallagher’s side — 47% say they will vote “no,” while 31% would vote “yes,” according to a poll of 800 registered voters conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and WCVB.
Still, Gallagher worries that on a ballot packed with nine questions, voters may forget about Question 8 or accidentally vote “yes” when they don’t mean to. Asked if he thinks the question will pass, Gallagher said, “I never thought it would make it on the ballot.”
There are many who intend to vote “yes.” Karen Walsh Pio, chair of the South Hadley Board of Health, argues that marijuana legalization has normalized the substance, particularly for minors, by promoting it as something that’s not harmful.
“If the product is available, being advertised in windows, kids are passing by it and exposed to it,” Walsh Pio said. “The social norming effect on kids is immeasurable.”
South Hadley is one of the only communities in Hampshire County that has banned cannabis sales, as approved by residents in 2018. Walsh Pio says marijuana is generally viewed as a non-addictive substance, which is untrue.
“My concern is that marijuana is addicting, but no one believes it,” Walsh Pio said. “Marijuana is changing the brain in adolescent development, and the data and statistics show it, but nobody believes it.”
Lisa Goldsmith of the Collaborative for Educational Services (CES) in Northampton, which gathers data on marijuana’s impact on youth, said more dispensaries typically lead to more marijuana use.
“We have higher rates of use around communities that have higher numbers of dispensaries,” Goldsmith said.
According to CES, based on self-reported data from 2025, rates of cannabis use among teenage students in Hampshire County have dropped since 2023. Although risk perceptions have increased, many students still report believing that cannabis will improve their mental health and sleep, unaware of the potency of the products they use.
Another issue, she said, is youth consuming too large a dose of various cannabis products.
“It’s important that we have a discussion about cannabis,” Goldsmith said.
Gallagher argues that repealing recreational marijuana would only increase misconceptions. He said products sold by dispensaries must state their THC potency, while unregulated products do not.
“I think the important thing is educating consumers about those risks so they can make the appropriate choices for themselves, rather than just eliminating all those regulations and pushing people back into unsafe, untested, unregulated markets,” Gallagher said.
Leading the ballot question
Question 8 was petitioned by the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, which has been accused of misleading voters during the petitioning process, WAMC reports. The coalition has received funding from Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a Virginia-based nonprofit.
Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts did not respond to requests for comment.
Ryan Dominguez of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition, the group leading efforts to reject Question 8, said the initiative would put thousands of people out of jobs if it passes. He said the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition has invested in multiple cannabis education programs to promote the growth of a sustainable cannabis industry.
He said a repeal would not eliminate the demand for marijuana, and similar to Gallagher, it would push cannabis back into an unregulated market, driving people to start cultivating their own products, traveling to neighboring states or turning to the unregulated market.
“It would be a force for us to go backwards,” Dominguez said. “We want to make sure that the folks buying cannabis can stay away from that illicit market.”
