The Governor Who Played Both Sides: Ron DeSantis and the Business of Cannabis

Ron DeSantis has spent the better part of a decade telling Floridians he's fighting for them — draining the swamp, protecting children, defending small business. But when it comes to cannabis, the governor's record tells a different story. It's a story about Medicaid dollars flowing through a first lady's charity into anti-marijuana political committees. About a hemp veto that coincided with millions in pledged donations. About a revolving door of lobbyists, donors, and political operatives who have profited at every turn while ordinary Floridians still face jail time for possession.

This is not a story about whether cannabis should be legal. It's a story about power, money, and the gap between what a politician says and what the money trail reveals.

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Chapter 1: The Populist Play — Smokable Medical Marijuana (2019)

DeSantis arrived in Tallahassee in January 2019 with an unusual opening act. Nine days after his inauguration, he stood at a press conference flanked by an unlikely duo: Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz and Democratic trial attorney John Morgan, the man who bankrolled the 2016 constitutional amendment that legalized medical marijuana with 71% of the vote.

Their shared cause was simple — Republican lawmakers under former Governor Rick Scott had passed implementing legislation in 2017 that banned smokable forms of cannabis, a move widely seen as undermining the will of voters. DeSantis demanded the legislature repeal the smoking ban by mid-March, threatening to drop the state's appeal of a lower court ruling that had already struck it down.

The legislature complied. Senate Bill 182 was the first bill DeSantis signed as governor.

It was a genuinely popular move, and DeSantis deserves credit for it. But the context matters. The medical marijuana industry — particularly Trulieve, Florida's dominant operator — had deep financial ties to the people who put DeSantis in the governor's mansion.

During the 2018 campaign, Trulieve contributed $50,000 to the Florida GOP, which was heavily involved in electing DeSantis and funding his campaign ads. The Beshears brothers, connected to the cannabis industry through early legislative involvement, donated more than $75,000 to DeSantis's campaign and political committee through multiple family-controlled entities. Surterra, another licensed medical marijuana operator, contributed $60,000 to his committee.

Brian Ballard, Florida's most powerful lobbyist and the chair of DeSantis's inaugural fundraising committee, was already representing Trulieve in Washington, D.C. at $40,000 per quarter. Ballard had previously lobbied for five Florida nurseries seeking medical marijuana licenses and held a financial interest in three marijuana ventures that received state licenses — all three of which later sold those licenses to out-of-state companies for eight-figure sums.

The co-chair of DeSantis's inaugural fundraising committee was a lobbyist for Surterra.

Within six months of the smokable ban being lifted, Trulieve reported record profits, telling investors that smokable flower had become half of their Florida sales and was the primary driver of patient growth. Within a year, the company's quarterly revenue had doubled to $136 million. Around that time, Trulieve made a $25,000 contribution to DeSantis's political committee.

Chapter 2: The Revolving Door

A CNN investigation in late 2023 traced the web of relationships connecting DeSantis, his inner circle, and the cannabis industry. One name stood out: Courtney Coppola.

Coppola served as the director of Florida's Office of Medical Marijuana Use under the previous administration, where she played a role in brokering early arrangements with Trulieve. She then moved into a top aide position in DeSantis's governor's office. By 2023, she had left government entirely — and was registered as a lobbyist for Trulieve, working at Ballard's firm, which had opened a national cannabis practice in 2022.

The pipeline was clean: regulate the industry, join the governor's team, then lobby for the industry's biggest player.

Ballard Partners, for its part, is no ordinary lobbying firm. Brian Ballard co-chaired the inaugurations of three consecutive Florida governors — DeSantis, Rick Scott, and Charlie Crist — and chaired the Florida Finance Committee for every Republican presidential nominee since John McCain in 2008. When Susie Wiles left Ballard Partners in 2019, she went on to run Trump's Florida campaign operations and eventually became White House Chief of Staff in 2025. Pam Bondi, a Ballard Partners partner since 2019, became Trump's Attorney General.

These aren't peripheral figures. This is the center of Florida Republican power, and cannabis money flows through it.

Chapter 3: The Line in the Sand — Against Legalization

For all his early cooperation with the medical marijuana industry, DeSantis drew a hard line against recreational legalization.

When Trulieve — by then generating over $1 billion in annual revenue — began bankrolling Amendment 3, the 2024 ballot initiative to legalize recreational cannabis, DeSantis went to war. The company ultimately poured more than $144 million into the effort through the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, making it one of the most expensive ballot measure campaigns in American history.

DeSantis took it personally. He relentlessly attacked Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers (though rarely by name), calling the amendment a vehicle for a corporate "monopoly." He warned that passage would mean people could bring marijuana near schools and that Florida's cities would smell of cannabis. He enlisted state agency heads — from the Department of Juvenile Justice to the Department of Health — in his campaign against the measure. State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo released guidance warning about marijuana dangers.

Amendment 3 received 56% of the vote in November 2024 — a clear majority, but short of the 60% supermajority required for constitutional amendments in Florida. DeSantis won.

But how he won is where the story gets dark.

Chapter 4: The Hemp Veto — "Nothing in Life Is Free"

In March 2024, the Florida legislature passed SB 1698, a bill that would have severely restricted the sale of hemp-derived THC products — Delta-8, Delta-9, and Delta-10 — that had proliferated across the state since Florida authorized hemp cultivation in 2019 under the federal Farm Bill framework.

The hemp industry in Florida had exploded. With approximately 9,000 retail locations selling hemp products, many producing genuine euphoric effects, Florida had become ground zero for what critics called "the hemp loophole" — products that were functionally indistinguishable from marijuana but technically legal because they were derived from hemp plants containing less than 0.3% THC by dry weight.

The bill passed the Senate unanimously and cleared the House 64-48. Then DeSantis vetoed it.

In his veto message, DeSantis framed the decision as pro-small business, arguing the bill would impose "debilitating regulatory burdens." His office was flooded with over 7,600 emails opposing the bill versus just 65 supporting it. He urged the legislature to develop a more comprehensive framework in 2025.

Within three weeks, the quid pro quo — or what looked remarkably like one — became visible.

CBS News Miami obtained WhatsApp messages from a group called "Save Florida Hemp," with over 1,000 members including major hemp labs and manufacturers. The messages were blunt.

An introductory post stated that hemp executives' lobby team had "made promises to rally some serious funding" to stand with DeSantis against Amendment 3. Another member wrote plainly about the financial obligation from the veto. The WhatsApp group included the bank routing number for the Republican Party of Florida.

Subsequent messages tracked industry contributions flowing into the RPOF — ranging from $500 from small retail shops to $250,000 from Arvida Labs. The industry's goal was $5 million.

Hemp distributor Ernie Ciaccio dismissed the characterization publicly, insisting DeSantis simply fought for small business and the industry was stepping up to support him. "That's not what this is," he told CBS. But his own industry's internal communications told a different story.

The Republican Party of Florida's chairman, Evan Power, and its interim executive director, Bill Helmich, were simultaneously serving as lobbyists for the Florida Healthy Alternatives Association — one of the state's largest hemp trade groups. This dual role — party leadership and hemp industry lobbying — was the structural bridge between the veto and the political cash.

DeSantis's office denied any deal. "Governor DeSantis vetoed SB 1698 because the bill would impose debilitating regulatory burdens on small businesses," a spokesman said.

Meanwhile, with the hemp industry alive and fighting alongside DeSantis against legal marijuana, Florida's 9,000+ hemp shops continued operating with minimal oversight, selling products that competitors in the licensed medical marijuana industry — paying $1.3 million in biannual license renewal fees — viewed as unfair, unregulated competition.

Chapter 5: Hope Florida — Following the Money

If the hemp veto was the appetizer, the Hope Florida scandal was the main course.

Hope Florida is Casey DeSantis's signature initiative, launched in 2021 to connect underprivileged Floridians with private-sector and faith-based resources as an alternative to government assistance. A separate entity, the Hope Florida Foundation, was created as a direct support organization to fund the program through private donations.

In September 2024 — just two months before voters would decide on Amendment 3 — the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration reached a $67 million settlement with Centene Corporation, the state's largest Medicaid contractor, over overbilling. House Republican leadership later argued that settlement proceeds should have been deposited into general revenue under Florida law.

Instead, $10 million was directed to the Hope Florida Foundation.

What happened next, according to campaign finance records, Florida House investigators, and text messages obtained by the Associated Press, was a rapid-fire sequence of money transfers that a Republican state representative would later call "criminal fraud."

On October 13, 2024, two organizations submitted $5 million grant requests to the Hope Florida Foundation:

Secure Florida's Future, run by Mark Wilson, CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

Save Our Society From Drugs, a 501(c)(4) lobbying organization whose history stretches back decades through the Sembler family (more on them shortly).

The grant requests were approved. On October 22, the foundation wired $5 million to Save Our Society From Drugs. The next day, Save Our Society began donating to Keep Florida Clean — a political action committee whose chairman was James Uthmeier, DeSantis's chief of staff.

Between October and December 2024, Keep Florida Clean received $8.5 million from the two nonprofit recipients. It then sent more than $10.5 million to the Republican Party of Florida — which was actively campaigning against Amendment 3 — and another $1.1 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, DeSantis's personal political committee. Uthmeier chaired both Keep Florida Clean and the Florida Freedom Fund.

Text messages obtained by the AP indicate that Uthmeier helped connect Amy Ronshausen, executive director of Save Our Society From Drugs, to the Hope Florida Foundation's grant process before the foundation's own board had been formally notified the $10 million was coming.

The trail: Medicaid settlement → Hope Florida Foundation (Casey DeSantis) → Anti-drug nonprofits → PAC chaired by DeSantis's chief of staff → Republican Party of Florida → Anti-Amendment 3 campaign.

DeSantis called the settlement "100% appropriate" and stood by the program. His Freedom Fund called the suggestion that settlement money reached his committee or the anti-marijuana campaign "absolutely false." But as campaign finance experts noted, once money moves between political committees, it becomes functionally impossible to trace individual dollars to their source.

State Representative Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican leading the House investigation, was not buying it. "The questions I now have are what did Governor DeSantis know, what did James Uthmeier know, and who on earth thought this was legal, moral, or ethical?" he said.

The Leon County State Attorney opened a grand jury investigation in 2025. However, Uthmeier — the man at the center of the money flow — had by then been appointed Florida's Attorney General by DeSantis, creating a glaring conflict of interest in any state-level prosecution. The Trump DOJ reportedly dismissed a separate federal complaint in early 2026, which DeSantis celebrated as the end of a "witch hunt."

Meanwhile, the internal fallout was telling. James Holton, chairman of Save Our Society From Drugs' board, resigned in May 2025, writing in his resignation letter that he was unaware the organization had accepted $5 million from Hope Florida or donated millions to a political committee. Ronshausen was suspended from her position in April 2025, just six weeks after being honored at the Governor's Mansion as a "Florida Hero" for her anti-drug work.

Chapter 6: The Sembler Shadow — Straight Inc. to Save Our Society

The money that moved through Save Our Society From Drugs didn't arrive from nowhere. The organization is the lobbying arm of the Drug Free America Foundation, and both entities share the same St. Petersburg address: 333 3rd Avenue North, Suite 200.

Both were created by Mel and Betty Sembler.

Mel Sembler, who died in October 2023, was a Republican mega-donor, former U.S. Ambassador to both Australia and Italy, and finance chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2000. He raised a record $21.3 million at a single GOP dinner in 2000.

But before his diplomatic career, Sembler co-founded something far more controversial. In 1976, he, his wife Betty, and Joseph Zappala established Straight, Inc., a residential drug rehabilitation program for teenagers.

Straight, Inc. operated from 1976 until its closure in the early 1990s following a cascade of lawsuits alleging systematic physical and psychological abuse of minors. Virginia regulators found that staff had held young clients against their will, allowed clients to restrain other clients, and deprived them of sleep, food, and water as punishment. Former patients described the experience as "torture." One survivor, admitted at age 12, alleged she was beaten, psychologically abused, and raped. Florida's own Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services expressed concerns about Straight's practices but granted it a license to operate anyway — after Sembler and several state senators intervened.

First Lady Nancy Reagan visited a Straight facility in 1982. President George H.W. Bush praised the program. Straight treated over 12,000 young people before the lawsuits forced it to shut down.

Three years after closing, Straight, Inc.'s corporate entity was renamed the Drug Free America Foundation in 1995. Betty Sembler founded Save Our Society From Drugs in 1998 as its lobbying arm. The organizations pivoted from treatment to advocacy — specifically, fighting marijuana legalization at every level.

The Semblers spent decades — and millions — opposing cannabis reform. Mel Sembler personally pledged to raise $10 million to defeat Florida's 2016 medical marijuana amendment (it passed anyway with 71% of the vote). Save Our Society From Drugs bankrolled the unsuccessful opposition to Colorado's Amendment 64 in 2012. The Drug Free America Foundation fought Florida's 2014 medical marijuana ballot initiative.

When DeSantis issued his statement following Betty Sembler's death in 2022, he praised her as someone who "dedicated her life to philanthropy and advocacy to prevent and mitigate drug use among our nation's youth."

Now, the organizational infrastructure the Semblers built — funded for decades by their personal wealth and GOP donor connections — served as the conduit for $5 million in Medicaid settlement money to reach a political committee fighting marijuana legalization. The organization's executive director was connected to the grant process by DeSantis's own chief of staff.

Chapter 7: The Contradiction — A Man for All Seasons

What makes DeSantis's cannabis story so unusual isn't that a politician took money from industry interests — that's the water supply of American politics. It's that DeSantis has simultaneously served as a champion for the medical cannabis industry (lifting the smokable ban, expanding patient access), a protector of the unregulated hemp market (vetoing SB 1698), and the most aggressive opponent of recreational legalization in any major state — all while the money kept flowing from every direction.

He benefited from cannabis industry donations when he needed the medical marijuana vote. He benefited from hemp industry donations when he needed anti-Amendment 3 funding. And he allegedly benefited from diverted taxpayer money through a charity controlled by his wife when he needed to overwhelm legalization supporters in the final weeks before the election.

Through it all, DeSantis maintained the same public posture: he was protecting children, defending quality of life, and respecting the will of the voters (when that will aligned with his position) or resisting dangerous constitutional overreach (when it didn't).

The Florida legislature, for its part, has failed to pass any meaningful cannabis reform in either 2025 or 2026 — not decriminalization, not home cultivation for patients, not even basic protections for medical marijuana patients who face employment discrimination. A state appeals court upheld the firing of a Department of Corrections officer who used medical marijuana to treat PTSD from military service. Bills addressing these issues never received a committee vote.

Florida remains one of only 19 states that hasn't decriminalized cannabis. Simple possession can still result in jail time.

Chapter 8: Where Things Stand

As of April 2026, DeSantis is term-limited and cannot run for governor again. Speculation centers on whether Casey DeSantis will enter the 2026 gubernatorial race — a prospect that adds another dimension to the Hope Florida controversy. Representative Byron Donalds has already declared his candidacy with a Trump endorsement.

James Uthmeier, who chaired both Keep Florida Clean and the Florida Freedom Fund and was identified in text messages as connecting nonprofits to the Hope Florida grant process, now serves as Florida's Attorney General — appointed by DeSantis.

Jeff Aaron, the Hope Florida Foundation's attorney and a DeSantis appointee to the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission (earning ~$78K/year from the state), simultaneously became general counsel to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority in January 2025 at nearly $600/hour.

The Leon County grand jury investigation continues, though the office that would typically handle such matters is now led by the man legislators identified as central to the transactions.

Smart & Safe Florida submitted 1.4 million petition signatures for a new legalization initiative targeting the 2026 ballot, but through what the campaign called "questionable actions and interpretations," the state validated only 793,000. Trulieve has contributed another $19.6 million to the renewed effort.

The hemp industry, which DeSantis saved with his 2024 veto, may face an existential threat from an entirely different direction: a last-minute provision added to a November 2025 federal spending bill that would reclassify many readily available hemp products as marijuana by November 2026.

The 2025 Florida legislative session saw another hemp regulation bill (SB 438) advance, with restrictions similar to the vetoed 2024 version. The hemp industry won another reprieve — no new restrictions were enacted.

And on it goes.

The Bottom Line

Ron DeSantis didn't create the contradictions in American cannabis policy. The federal government's maintenance of marijuana as a Schedule I substance while allowing states to legalize it, the hemp loophole created by the 2018 Farm Bill, the peculiar economics of Florida's vertically integrated medical marijuana market — these existed before DeSantis took office and will persist after he leaves.

But DeSantis exploited every one of those contradictions for political and financial advantage, positioning himself as whatever the moment required: reformer, protector, warrior, or friend of small business. The money flowed accordingly — from cannabis companies when reform was the play, from hemp executives when deregulation was the play, and allegedly from taxpayer-funded settlements when the anti-legalization campaign needed a final push.

56% of Florida voters said yes to legal marijuana in November 2024. That's a majority. Not a supermajority — but a majority. And those voters' will was defeated, in part, by what a Republican state legislator has called potential "money laundering and wire fraud" involving a charity founded by the governor's wife, directed by the governor's chief of staff, and fueled by dollars that should have gone to the state's general revenue.

Cannabis policy is complicated. This isn't. When the people who are supposed to be draining the swamp are the ones filling it, it doesn't matter which side of the legalization debate you're on.

You're getting played.