The Green Thread: Marijuana in the states

[DaleCooper]

People like Matt Walsh and Cernovich have been on a major anti weed kick lately. I wonder if the legalization movement will slow down for awhile. Based on Ohio Issue 2 results, including almost 90% support from under 30s, and over 2/3 support from millennials I highly doubt it, but something to keep an eye on.

If the right's propaganda machine tries to go hard against legalization then that hurts the right more than it does legalization. This is possibly the most unbeatable political issue I've seen in my lifetime so far. Nothing is going to roll back public opinion on marijuana legalization at this point.

[DaleCooper]

People like Matt Walsh and Cernovich have been on a major anti weed kick lately. I wonder if the legalization movement will slow down for awhile. Based on Ohio Issue 2 results, including almost 90% support from under 30s, and over 2/3 support from millennials I highly doubt it, but something to keep an eye on.

If the right's propaganda machine tries to go hard against legalization then that hurts the right more than it does legalization. This is possibly the most unbeatable political issue I've seen in my lifetime so far. Nothing is going to roll back public opinion on marijuana legalization at this point.

The problem is that the low-hanging fruit is pretty much gone now, at least as far as voter initiatives go. Congress is going to eventually have to act on the issue of marijuana. When it does, I don't expect it to force states to legalize. However, it will have to act on the very significant issue of interstate commerce. Right now, each state is legally self-contained with respect to its marijuana industry. What happens if and when the federal government permits crossing state lines? What happens if a state tries to interfere (such as a state like Indiana interfering if Illinois wants to have deals with Ohio/Michigan)?

I made a map here to illustrate the current lay of the land (obviously, this does not show the differences between states that have legalized, but that's true of many things):



Obviously, the states in green are where marijuana is legal. The states in blue allow for voter-initiated constitutional amendments and statutes (except Florida, which only allows for constitutional amendments with a 60% supermajority). Orange represents the states that only allow for initiatives that are statutes, which puts them at the full mercy of their respective legislatures. (The Wyoming Constitution forbids the legislature from repealing an initiated statute for two years, though it does allow it to be amended.) The states in red require legislative action to legalize.

I honestly think we're getting to the point where even Republicans start losing to Democrats or weed-friendly Republicans in red states. The pro-criminalization side is dead as far as public opinion goes.