Changes in state laws could usher in even more confusion for law enforcement and escalate the pressure on Congress to act.
More than 40 U.S. states could allow some form of legal marijuana by the end of 2020, including deep red Mississippi and South Dakota — and they’re doing it with the help of some conservatives.
State lawmakers are teeing up their bills as legislative sessions kick off around the country, and advocates pushing ballot measures are racing to collect and certify signatures to meet deadlines for getting their questions to voters.
Should they succeed, every state could have marijuana laws on the books that deviate from federal law, but people could still be prosecuted if they drive across state lines with their weed, because the total federal ban on marijuana isn’t expected to budge any time soon. The changes could usher in even more confusion for law enforcement and escalate the pressure on Congress to act. Federal bills are crawling through Congress, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell firmly against legalization.
But at the least, hopes will be high that federal hurdles to researching the effects of pot and restrictions on banking in the cannabis sector will ease.
“We’re cautiously optimistic that we can win more marijuana reform ballot initiatives on one Election Day than on any previous Election Day,” said Matthew Schweich, deputy director of the Marijuana Policy Project. Schweich cited growing public support for the issue among both liberals and conservatives.
The measures that make the ballot could drive voter turnout at the polls and by extension affect the presidential election.
Liberal states that allow ballot petitions have largely voted to legalize marijuana, including California, Oregon and Massachusetts. “Now, we’re venturing into new, redder territory and what we’re finding is voters are ready to approve these laws in those states,” said Schweich, who, along with leading legalization campaigns in Maine, Massachusetts and Michigan, served as the co-director of the medical marijuana legalization campaign in Utah.
“If we can pass medical marijuana in Utah, we can pass it anywhere.”
National organizations like his are eschewing swing states like Florida and Ohio, where the costs of running a ballot campaign are high during a presidential election. They are intentionally targeting states with smaller populations. For advocates, running successful campaigns in six less-populous states means potentially 12 more senators representing legal marijuana states.
“The cost of an Ohio campaign could cover the costs of [four to six] other ballot initiative campaigns. Our first goal is to pass laws in as many places as we can,” Schweich said.
They can’t take anything for granted, however. In Florida, where polling says two-thirds of voters want to legalize pot, one effort to gather enough signatures for a 2020 ballot measure collapsed last year, and a second gave up on Tuesday, saying there’s not enough time to vet 700,000 signatures. Organizers are looking to 2022.
And many legislative efforts to legalize marijuana came up short in 2019, including in New York and New Jersey. Those efforts were derailed in part over concerns about how to help people disproportionately harmed by criminal marijuana prosecutions, despite broad support from Democratic-controlled legislatures and the governors.
But it helps that national groups pushing back against the groundswell of state initiatives are few and far between.
Kevin Sabet, president of anti-legalization advocacy organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said his group is working behind the scenes in some states ahead of initiatives making the ballot.
"Because we don’t have deep-pocketed investors, we have to be very deliberate when it comes to how we spend our resources during a costly initiative election season," Sabet said. "We’ve been on the ground in several states meeting with partners and potential allies."
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