California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voters approved recreational legalization.
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California legalized medical marijuana about 20 years ago, and the legalization of recreational marijuana could significantly change how many people are imprisoned in California. The other states were Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada.
While marijuana backers, employers, the ACLU and others watch how MA officials roll out the legal cannabis industry, the national legalization movement and other states are eyeing the victory in MA as a catalyst for federal reform or another wave of state-level legalization pushes.
The number of adults who have smoked weed has almost doubled in three years, according to a Gallup poll released in August.
Over 64 million Americans-more than one-fifth of the country’s population-now live in states where cannabis is fully legal.
Votes on medical marijuana in Florida and North Dakota were decisive. Colorado and Washington state voted to OK it in 2012.
California, Nevada and MA approved measures legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, while Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota voted to allow pot for medical purposes. Voters in California and Nevada also legalized marijuana in their states on Tuesday, a legalization initiative in Arizona failed and a the results of a legalization question in ME were too close to call.
Colorado, where stores began legally selling recreational pot in 2014, reported nearly $1 billion in legal pot sales past year.
Nevadans voted 54.5 percent in favor to legalize marijuana. Women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, M.D., agrees, telling SELF that “medical marijuana has many different uses”.
California is the most populous U.S. state, and its economy ranks as the fifth largest in the world. ME would impose a ten percent tax on sales, MA a 3.75 percent excise tax and 6.25 percent sales tax, Nevada a 15 percent excise tax. According to the Associated Press and KTHV, “some political leaders said they preferred that Arkansas legislators instead allow a version of the drug that is low in THC, which gives marijuana its high”.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has favored use of recreational marijuana.
MA voters passed a major ballot question in Tuesday’s election.
“It’s already passed in other states”, he said.
-A California measure to repeal the death penalty.
However, legal pot appeared to be headed for defeat in Arizona, where the no side was leading 52 per cent to 48 per cent. Baker who argued that passage would exacerbate the state’s opioid epidemic. It also legalizes the possession of pot paraphernalia.
The Boston Globe wrote in support of the ballot measure, arguing, “legal marijuana is coming. Let’s get on with it”. This is the largest number of states that have considered nullifying marijuana prohibition in a single election cycle. The 15 percent cannabis real tax (and the cultivators’ excise tax) revenue will be allocated to research, education, environmental cleanup and so on, while also implementing community assessment, monopoly offsets, and cleansing of marijuana convicts’ criminal records. Nine in ten support the legalization of medical use. Previous attempts to legalize it for recreational purposes have been unsuccessful. “Economically, you’re going to see a lot more people enter the space and a lot more money enter the space”.
State-by-state polls showed most of the measures with a good chance of prevailing. The state’s newspapers are divided on the issue. “But we certainly will make every effort”. It would be regulated by a Bureau of Marijuana Control.
Value, people. We’re all about value …
In Nevada, it was a yes.
Regardless of what happens at the state level, marijuana remains illegal for all uses under federal law.
– Montana has been fighting for years in courts to fend off challenges to the medical marijuana legalization measure it passed in 2004. The Obama administration has adopted a policy of noninterference with state marijuana laws, as outlined in a 2013 memo by then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
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– BILINGUAL EDUCATION: California voters repealed a almost two-decade-old law that limited bilingual education in public schools.
