Kim Rivers wants to legalize marijuana in Florida. She has to beat Ron DeSantis first.
Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida’s largest medical marijuana company, has bet that she can beat Gov. Ron DeSantis in his own state.
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Ron DeSantis has bet big on trying to defeat Florida’s recreational marijuana initiative. And a medical marijuana CEO has poured in over $100 million trying to beat him in his own state.
Kim Rivers — the CEO of Trulieve, the state’s largest medical marijuana company — has quietly become one of the biggest players in Florida’s November elections, with her company almost single-handedly bankrolling the state’s recreational marijuana ballot measure.
If Rivers wins, it won’t only hand DeSantis a significant, potentially legacy-defining defeat. Trulieve could be on the receiving end of a potentially $6 billion green rush — if at least 60 percent of voters in the nation’s third most-populous state back legalization.
In an interview at Trulieve’s office in Tallahassee, Rivers — flanked by a whiteboard with countdowns until Election Day, and then until Trulieve could make its first recreational sale if they win — said the campaign for Amendment 3 was the natural culmination of a decade-long fight to loosen restrictions around the drug in the state.
“I think the tide of sentiment has shifted,” Rivers said. “And I think that, candidly, Florida is ready for it.”
More than half of the country lives in the 24 states that have already legalized marijuana for anyone who’s at least 21 years old. Polling also consistently shows that roughly two-thirds of Americans support legalization. But Florida remains a significant untapped market. [Read More @ Politico]
Copyright
© Cannabis Business Executive
