Whatever happens next, Americans are pretty sure they want to be stoned when it does

Hunter

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday November 04, 2020 · 10:33 AM PST

2020/11/04 · 10:33

Tourists Laura Torgerson and Ryan Sheehan, visiting from Arizona, smell cannabis buds at the Green Pearl Organics dispensary on the first day of legal recreational marijuana sales in California, January 1, 2018 in Desert Hot Springs, California. / AFP PHOTO / Robyn Beck (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images) — And can you blame them?

TAGS

Edit Tags

Tag History

Done Editing Tags

Americans turned out in massive numbers this election, and while the details are still in doubt, we now know the broad themes of their message: Americans want soft drugs and entrenched political incompetence, damn it, and they want them both right now.

Five states had ballot measures loosening or removing restrictions on marijuana usage in 2020. All five of them won. Recreational usage will soon be legal in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota. South Dakota and Mississippi passed separate measures legalizing medical use.

Washington, D.C., and Oregon went farther. Measures to legalize psychedelic mushrooms for medical use passed in both, due to heightened interest in therapeutic usage. Oregon also decriminalized the position of "harder" drugs like methamphetamines, in small "non-commercial" amounts, in a move intended to shift law enforcement resources away from the prosecution of petty offenders. Those offenders will instead be redirected towards anti-addiction programs.

None of this resolves the continued conflict between the states, which continue to steadily shift towards soft-drug legalization, and a conservative federal government resistant to those moves. Voters, however, seem sure of the direction the nation needs to go. No matter what happens in America for the next four years, voters in 15 states are certain they don't want to go through it without significant amounts of (ahem) marijuana on hand.

Whatever happens next, Americans are pretty sure they want to be stoned when it does

Comments are closed on this story.