Approval in California alone, home to 39 million people, means that nearly a fifth of all Americans live in states where recreational marijuana is legal, according to U.S. Census figures.
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Voters in California and Nevada also voted Tuesday to allow for recreational use of marijuana. As of this morning in ME, the “yes” vote leads by less than 1 point with 98% of precincts reporting.
Massachusetts, California and Nevada all voted to legalized recreational marijuana last night.
Canada’s marijuana industry could benefit after at least six states representing twice the population of Canada voted in favour of legalizing the drug, either recreationally or medically. “There are various ways in which a hostile White House could trip things up”.
Legalization supporters lost in only one state, Arizona, where voters rejected a plan to tax and sell marijuana to adults.
California was the first state to approve medical marijuana two decades ago.
“Even if we didn’t have signals from Donald Trump, the fact is that this is where the public has moved”, said Blumenauer, who first promoted legalization as a member of the Oregon Legislature in 1973. According to Fox News, voters of marijuana legalization had declared themselves as winners and predicted that marijuana would be legal around Christmas.
In Massachusetts, 1.7 million voters approved a measure to legalize marijuana, or 53.6 percent of the vote.
So the three states Tuesday, and possibly ME, joined Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia in legalizing certain amounts of marijuana. The recreational use pot market in California is projected to touch $35 billion by 2020 computed depending on economic growth estimates in Colorado.
“Medicinal users can purchase recreationally, but recreational users cannot purchase medically”, medical marijuana shop Blüm general manager Mikel Alvarez said.
Recreational marijuana is “going to attract a lot of business”, said Nikki Lastreto, a Northern California pot grower.
“The new law focuses on undoing the most egregious harms of marijuana prohibition, which have disproportionately impacted communities of color”, says Lynne Lyman from the Drug Policy Alliance, according to the Los Angeles Times.
It also would establish a system to license, regulate and tax sales of marijuana, while allowing city governments to exercise local control over commercial distribution within their borders. Medical marijuana is already legal in the state.
The new law allows any Californian who is 21 or older to possess, transport, buy and use up to 1 ounce of cannabis for recreational purposes.
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While the state will ultimately tax its sale, marijuana smoking will be banned in public places, the same as with cigarettes.
