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November 4, 2020
"Drugs Won Big During the U.S. Election"
The title of this post is the title of this Vice piece highlighting one clear pattern of clear winners during election 2020. Here are excerpts:
Despite the uncertainty over the outcome of the U.S. presidential race Wednesday morning, Mississippi cannabis advocate Natalie Jones Bonner was feeling “absolute joy.” Jones Bonner, 59, was celebrating the passing of Initiative 65, a ballot measure that will establish a medical cannabis program in the state.
Mississippi is one of a handful of states to pass drug reform measures last night. In a groundbreaking decision, Oregon voted to support Measure 110, which will decriminalize all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Oregon also voted to legalize access to psychedelic mushrooms for medicinal purposes.
Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota all voted to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes. South Dakota additionally voted yes to establishing a medical cannabis regime. Voters in the District of Columbia passed a measure to decriminalize shrooms.
The outcomes are a boon for drug reform advocates and the cannabis industry, making the possibility of federal weed decriminalization more feasible. Currently, 33 states allow medical cannabis and 11 have recreational regimes. Several of the states that passed measures last night have historically been proponents of the war on drugs, with Black people disproportionately arrested for drug crimes....
Matt Sutton, spokesman for the Drug Policy Alliance, said the support of drug reform is crucial in the context of wider conversations around police brutality and the failings of the criminal justice system. He said Oregon’s decriminalization measure could result in a 95 percent decrease in racial disparities in arrests, according to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission.
Sutton said it’s “remarkable” that weed legalization would pass in states like Montana, which has the highest rate of racial disparities in weed arrests, and South Dakota, where 10 percent of all arrests are tied to cannabis.
Economic gains, particularly as the pandemic is draining state resources, are in part behind the bilateral support of cannabis reform. Sutton said he expects New Jersey’s decision to legalize cannabis to light a fire under New York, which has stalled in setting up its legal recreational regime.
Over at Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform I have been blogging a few reactions to marijuana's big election night via these two new posts:
November 4, 2020 at 10:09 PM | Permalink
