A statewide ad blitz by the group pushing for legalized marijuana warns Floridians of the dangers of black-market pot:
It may be laced with fentanyl, they say, a potent drug driving an epidemic of fatal drug overdoses.
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“I’ve seen it firsthand,” Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young said in a 30-second television spot running in primetime.
Legal pot will be regulated and lab-tested, he said, making his case for why voters should support Amendment 3 in November to authorize recreational marijuana in Florida.
But amid heightened concerns across the country about the synthetic opioid fentanyl, usually taken separately or mixed with heroin or other opioids, experts unaligned with the campaign cast serious doubt on the claim that fentanyl-tainted marijuana is an actual problem.
Several officials on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic say they haven’t seen deaths caused by fentanyl-laced marijuana. Some groups have even called it a myth that the two drugs are combined and sold to unwitting users.
Though Amendment 3 supporters raise valid points that legal pot would be scrutinized if the measure passes, the chances of someone unknowingly buying fentanyl-dusted pot is extremely low, said Dr. Bruce Goldberger, a University of Florida forensic toxicologist who monitors drug overdose trends.
“I am not aware of any definitive finding related to marijuana fortified with fentanyl,” he said. “There have been reports of that over the last five to 10 years. To my knowledge, none of these instances were verified.”
Young has referenced a mass fentanyl poisoning blamed for at least six deaths in Gadsden County as being linked to fentanyl-laced marijuana, but his office declined to release records related to the case, citing an ongoing investigation. Medical examiner reports show cocaine was also found in the systems of the victims in those drug overdose deaths, which occurred over the Fourth of July weekend in 2022.
A 2022 article in the Journal of Emergency Medicine called fentanyl-laced marijuana a “malevolent myth,” largely based on hearsay.
Fentanyl is a real and deadly drug responsible for thousands of overdose deaths each year in Florida alone. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has warned of fake prescription drugs containing fentanyl and methamphetamine but hasn’t issued any alerts about marijuana.
The Partnership to End Addiction found no solid evidence exists of fentanyl-laced marijuana and concluded it wouldn’t make sense for drug dealers to secretly mix the pricier opioid with cheaper pot. Fentanyl would likely be burned up and rendered harmless if it were mixed with pot and then smoked, the nonprofit organization of drug researchers and clinicians said.
Legalization supporters, though, say there is no way of knowing what is in unregulated pot. If Amendment 3 passes in November with at least 60% of the vote, consumers would know how potent their pot is and that it is free of harmful additives, they say.
To make their case, the campaign provided a tour of one of the state’s nine medical pot labs to show off the rigorous testing that those products undergo.
The Lakeland lab operated by Modern Canna collects random samples — from gummies to marijuana flowers — and tests for pesticides, heavy metals, mold and other potentially health-harming contaminants. It also verifies that the potency of pot products matches what is advertised to consumers.
“At the core, that’s what Amendment 3 does,” said Steve Vancore, a spokesman for Smart & Safe Florida, the group behind the legalization ballot initiative. “It says, ‘Let’s take it off the streets and put it into a safer, regulated market, where it goes to places like this, where it can be lab tested for safety’.”
Amendment 3 doesn’t explicitly include testing requirements, but supporters argue the Florida Legislature would treat recreational pot like medical pot, which is closely regulated by the state.
Florida would become the 25th state to legalize recreational marijuana if Amendment 3 passes. Several polls have shown it clearing the 60% threshold it needs to succeed, although a few have found it coming up just short.
Sheriff points to mass fentanyl poisoning
Vancore and other Amendment 3 supporters cite the Gadsden fentanyl poisonings as an example of the dangers of contaminated marijuana.
In a July op-ed in the Tallahassee Democrat supporting Amendment 3, Young, the Gadsden sheriff, wrote that some of those who died had been smoking marijuana laced with a fentanyl and methamphetamine mixture.
The Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to requests to interview Young, one of the few sheriffs in Florida to publicly support Amendment 3, or answer questions about those cases. Gadsden County is home to Trulieve, a medical marijuana company that has put more than $80 million into the legalization push since 2022.
Through Vancore, the Amendment 3 spokesman, Young declined to release any reports or discuss the case further, citing an ongoing investigation.
Medical examiner records, first obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat, showed five of the people who died had fentanyl in their system along with cocaine. Two of those five also tested positive for compounds found in marijuana. Fentanyl wasn’t detected in one of the overdoses, which was attributed to “sudden cardiac death due to cocaine abuse.” That person had marijuana in his system.
The documents don’t shed light, though, on whether victims ingested the combination of drugs because the marijuana had been mixed with fentanyl.
Locally, law enforcement officials say they haven’t seen people dying of marijuana-laced fentanyl.
The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office has not had any verified cases of marijuana being laced with fentanyl or other dangerous drugs, said Kim Cannaday, an agency spokeswoman.
However, testing provides a hazy picture of what’s in illicit pot, she said.
Field tests used by law enforcement officers are designed to identify certain primary substances, such as marijuana’s active ingredient, but not other potentially harmful additives, Cannaday said. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement typically requires at least 50 grams of marijuana, just over 1 1/2 ounces, for comprehensive testing, she said, meaning small busts aren’t checked.
The FDLE did not respond to requests for comment on what their labs are finding.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said in a television interview in 2023 that his agency had found fentanyl in cannabis, though he did not offer specifics. Agency spokeswoman Summer McCray said the office is aware of reports that marijuana could be laced with fentanyl, but deputies have “not encountered a lot of that here” and aren’t aware of any deaths caused by fentanyl-laced marijuana.
Orange County recorded one overdose death in 2021 that toxicology reports attributed to fentanyl and synthetic cannabinoid toxicity, she said. Known as K2 or spice, synthetic cannabinoids are lab-made products that are similar to chemicals found in the cannabis plant.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s issued a news release in August on “National Fentanyl Prevention Day,” warning that “one pill can kill.” Most of the release focused on the dangers of fentanyl mixed with cocaine and counterfeit pills, but one sentence said Moody was trying “to raise awareness about illicit fentanyl being mixed with other illicit substances like cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines.”
As Florida works to prevent fentanyl overdose deaths, the biggest concern is the potent drug being mixed with cocaine, heroin and pills — not marijuana, said Andrae Bailey, founder and CEO of Project Opioid, an Orlando-based advocacy group.
“There are situations where we’ve heard of it happening,” he said of fentanyl-laced pot. “It is not in any way a meaningful part of the opioid crisis in Florida. … I think there are better cases to be made than the need to shield people from fentanyl in marijuana.”
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