Summary: Oregon and Alaska residents are voting on marijuana legalization measures on election day that would allow the buying, selling and consumption of the drug.
With America hitting the polls on Tuesday, marijuana can be found on ballots in Oregon and Alaska, according to NBC News.
If the measures pass in these two states, residents will be allowed to buy, sell and consume marijuana legally in all of its forms.
Six more states are expected to make the decision of whether to tax and regulate the drug in 2016.
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Mason Tvert, the communications director at the Marijuana Policy Project, said, “I’ve slept like six hours in the last week and a half, man. If both the ballot initiatives fail, it doesn’t matter, because the public support is trending toward legalization.”
Tvert discussed a parallel between a loss on the legalization of pot and the battle for same-sex marriage.
“If one state passed a gay marriage ban this election, no one would say, oh, the country has reversed itself on the issue. No, we would say, man that state is crazy. It’s the same thing with marijuana.”
The Drug Policy Alliance is leading the push for marijuana legalization in Oregon known as Yes on Ballot Measure 91.
The group is located in New York and funded by George Soros, a billionaire investor. Ethan Nadelmann is the executive director of the group.
Nadelmann said, “If we lose in Oregon, it will shift the national frame a little bit. But it doesn’t change the strategy and it doesn’t change the tactics. A generation from now people will still step back and look at the prohibition of marijuana and say, what the heck was that about?”
The legalization of marijuana will permit law enforcement to go after more serious crimes, raise tax revenue and even undercut the violent drug cartels in Mexico.
To read more stories on the drug cartels, click here.
The anti-legalization has a lobby called Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which is shortened to SAM. It was founded by Kevin Sabet and Patrick Kennedy last year.
Sabet said, “Legalization in practice will always be the biggest enemy of legalization. We can point at their (Colorado and Washington) example. We can ask the teacher in Portland if they want the same problems as the teachers in Denver, with kids bringing marijuana candy to school. We can ask the civil rights advocate in Anchorage whether they want to see marijuana stores as thick as liquor stores in minority neighborhoods.”
Voters in the District of Columbia will vote on a measure Tuesday that would allow adults 21 or older to possess no more than two ounces of marijuana and grow no more than six plants in their homes. Voters in Florida will vote on a measure that would legalize medical marijuana.
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Image credit: AP