Legalization of Marijuanas Vote

Jeremy Baldwin marks cannabis seedlings on October 31, 2022 at a marijuana farm operated by Greenlight in Grandview, Missouri. Voters in North Dakota, South Dakota and Arkansas opposed measures to legalize recreational cannabis, while those in Maryland and Missouri approved legalization. Charlie Riedel/AP Hide the legend Voting in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota gave voters the opportunity to legalize marijuana in the 2022 election. The Associated Press said Maryland voters approved legalization Tuesday night. Maryland voted to allow recreational marijuana use in Tuesday`s midterm elections — though the issue lagged behind in three of the other four states where it was on the ballot. Only two of the five state election initiatives calling on voters to legalize cannabis for adults passed in Tuesday`s midterm elections. And Hudak isn`t optimistic that state changes surrounding marijuana legalization will change much nationally. «The idea that the number of states adopting legal cannabis will suddenly change anything in Congress has not been confirmed in the experience of cannabis policy in the United States,» Hudak told TIME. «We have three-quarters of U.S. states that have legalized medical cannabis, which hasn`t changed medical cannabis policy at the federal level.» Rejected voting measures in Arkansas and the Dakotas do not mean a rejection of legalization, Armentano says. Two forces have come together against the election measures, he says: All three states are Republican strongholds, and the demographics of midterm voters are historically older and less progressive. The U.S.

House of Representatives voted to pass the Marijuana Reinvestment and Write-off Act, or MORE Act, which would decriminalize cannabis and pave the way for the eradication of nonviolent marijuana convictions at the federal level. H.R. 3884, which would remove marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), passed the House on December 4, 2020 by a vote of 228 to 164, largely along party lines and with 39 members not voting. Only six Democrats voted against the bill, while only five Republicans voted in favor. South Dakota residents, including a significant number of Republicans, voted to legalize marijuana possession in 2020, but that law was struck down by the state Supreme Court in part because the proposal was associated with medical marijuana and hemp. This year, the recreational pot is self-sufficient when it comes to voters. While 68% of Americans support legalizing cannabis, there are caveats. When asked what impact they thought marijuana use had on society, 50 percent of Americans said it had a negative effect, while 49 percent said positive, according to a recent Gallup poll. Although most midterm voters in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota voted «no» to adult use, Azer points out that cannabis has «invaded» the «deeper» red states, with more than 40 percent of voters in each of those states voting for weed legalization. The fact that Missouri, a Republican state, voted yes in its adult vote is a good indicator that marijuana legalization is bipartisan. «A big part of the reason we`ve seen this explosion of voting initiatives for legalization [of cannabis] and their success is that views on this issue have changed dramatically,» said John Hudak, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution.

«This legalization will help right the wrongs of the war on drugs and, you know, help affected communities,» Kris Furnish, president of Maryland Marijuana Justice, told WOBC. «It was an attack on black and brown people from day one and it`s still true today.» Nevertheless, beginning in 1996 with California, when voters accepted Proposition 215 with a 56% to 44% majority, states moved away from the federal approach to cannabis. Over the next 25 years, legalization spread across U.S. states as doctors and patients began to insist on access to medical marijuana as an alternative to opioids to mitigate the catastrophic effects of diseases such as cancer, Crohn`s disease, epilepsy and PTSD, as well as palliative care for other illnesses that cause severe chronic pain. Over the past decade, several states, led by Colorado and Washington State, went further in 2012 and legalized marijuana for all purposes, including recreational and medical use.