Florida could become yet another state to legalize recreational marijuana after the state Supreme Court determined Monday that the question should go before the voters in November.

If approved with 60% of the vote, the constitutional amendment would allow adults 21 or older to “possess, purchase, or use” up to 3 ounces of marijuana products, as well as legalize marijuana accessories.

It would also allow medical marijuana treatment centers and other state-licensed businesses to “acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute such products and accessories.”

The approval comes two years after the court ruled a similar marijuana measure was misleading and struck it from the 2022 ballot.

This time, the court ruled 5-2 that the amendment had a singular purpose and clear language.

Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody had opposed the measure, arguing it shouldn’t be put on the ballot because it would be misleading to voters as she thought it didn’t make clear marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Justices rejected that argument, along with the idea that voters would think the amendment would allow companies to “immediately enter the cannabis market” without a license.

The two dissenters, Justices Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso, were Gov. Ron DeSantis’ two most recent appointees to the bench. Three other DeSantis appointees voted to allow the ballot measure.

The amendment was backed by Trulieve, the state’s largest medical marijuana producer, which put about $40 million into the campaign to get it on the ballot.

“We look forward to supporting this campaign as it heads to the ballot this fall,” Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers said in a statement, adding the company will also be a strong backer of “the next important phase to educate Floridians on the amendment and secure a yes vote on Amendment 3 this November.”

DeSantis has said he opposes legalization, adding that he doesn’t like the “pungent odor” of marijuana in public spaces. He warned the ballot initiative’s language is too broad to control the smell, but supporters say it allows the Florida Legislature to put limits on outdoor consumption.

Following the ruling, Republican Florida House Speaker Paul Renner also said Monday he didn’t see a “critical need” for legalizing recreational marijuana.

“It looks innocuous,” he said. “But then you start asking yourself, ‘Can you smoke on a child’s playground? Can you smoke in an elevator?’ … The marijuana amendment is overly broad to serve the self-interest of those that are going to grow it and make billions and billions of dollars off of it.”

The justices wrote, however, that the amendment “leaves untouched the Department of Health’s existing authority to ‘issue reasonable regulations.’”

Democratic state Rep. Tom Keen, D-Orlando, praised the ruling on X,  formerly known as Twitter. “It’s clear that Floridians wanted legislators to take action to allow adult use of cannabis. Now, Floridians will have the opportunity to make their voices heard.”

What effect the amendment will have on turnout for the general election is unclear, however.

“This would be coming up in the context of a presidential election,” said Gregory Koger, a professor of political science at the University of Miami. “We were already expecting voter turnout to be high, above 60%. That being said, this initiative could bring additional voters to the polls who are more interested in increasing access to marijuana than voting for either one of the two candidates.”

Recreational pot is fully legal in 24 of the 50 states, with 13 others, including Florida, having legalized medicinal marijuana. Five states have decriminalized pot.

A Gallup poll from November showed 68% of Americans thought marijuana should be legal.

In Florida, where medicinal pot was legalized in 2016 with 71% of the vote, a University of North Florida poll from November found that 67% said they would vote for the recreational marijuana amendment.

A Florida Chamber of Commerce poll, meanwhile, found only 57% of Florida voters supported the amendment, which would not be enough to meet the 60% threshold for passage.

“The national Gallup poll has got 52% of conservatives supporting legal marijuana,” Koger said. “It’s splitting them in half. … It sort of puts the Republican Party in an interesting position. I imagine there would be some degree of tension on this issue. So I’m intrigued to see how they manage that conflict.”

For Democrats, the impact on turnout could be less than in a lower-turnout midterm year but still noticeable, said Daniel A. Smith, political science chair at the University of Florida

“Democrats should benefit,” Smith said. “Democratic positions are aligned … and voters should be able to make an easy connection between the candidates with a D next to their name and their support for these measures.”

Future Florida Leaders, a progressive young-voter organization, wasted no time in announcing Monday it would immediately start distributing “College Democrats-branded condoms and rolling papers” on college campuses. The goal would be to raise awareness of the marijuana measure and abortion rights amendment, which also was given a green light by the court.

But the pot referendum might allow Republicans “to have their cake and eat it too,” Smith said.

“There are certainly a lot of folks in this state who have their medical marijuana card but are also MAGA supporters,” Smith said. “Those hard-core Trump supporters are not going to be thinking about this issue as aligning their position with the Democratic Party. That’s just not going to happen.”

Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst who runs the MCIMaps site, said the effect on turnout for Democrats “really depends on the campaign.”

“I don’t think that by itself, it’s automatically going to have a super-notably statistical change,” Isbell said. “… The only way it’s going to have a real effect is if there’s a heavy campaign about it.”

He cited the 2014 medical marijuana initiative, which largely was detached from the governor’s race that year and did not boost turnout among Democrats. That measure failed, while a better-organized measure passed two years later.

David Jolly, a former Republican Congress member from St. Petersburg and co-founder of the Forward Party, said that much of the public has started to tune out marijuana opponents after their worst-case scenario predictions for medicinal marijuana haven’t panned out.

“We haven’t seen those negative consequences of it as a society,” Jolly said. “And I think that’s one of the reasons you see such broad support for [recreational use] now.”

John Morgan, head of the Orlando law firm Morgan & Morgan, who spearheaded the 2016 medicinal pot amendment, also said he believed the recreational measure would get widespread support.

“It’s bipartisan now,” Morgan said. “Only a few very old white men are still against it, and they don’t know why.”