Good day dear readers! As many of you officially emerge from your holidaze, we thought it a good time to update you on the new US marijuana legalization map. November’s election was one to remember, or forget, depending on where you stand…. For example, Arizona voters defeated a measure to legalize recreational marijuana.
On the other hand, most pro-pot advocates were successful and new laws will take effect in 2018. Thanks to our friends at the Marijuana Policy Project, here are the results of the 2016 elections and what we can look forward to in the next couple years. If you are counting, we are up to 8 states with legal recreational marijuana and 20 with legal medical marijuana (woot!).
For those of you with friends in these states, be sure to welcome them to the club by sending some favorites from Headed West!
Successful 2016 elections to legalize recreational marijuana:
- California
- Massachusetts
- Maine
- Nevada
Successful 2016 elections to legalize medical marijuana:
- Arkansas
- Florida
- North Dakota
- Montana
As for the future, the pro-marijuana forces are planning to expand the map quite a bit. This list will likely shrink as activists choose which states to concentrate their efforts going into the next election, but for now it is fairly aggressive.
States with potential elections to legalize recreational marijuana in 2018:
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Illinois
- Maryland
- New Hampshire
- Rhode Island
- Texas
- Vermont
States with potential elections to legalize medical marijuana in 2018:
- Louisiana
- Nebraska
- South Carolina
- Texas
- West Virginia
As the public gets more familiar with marijuana as part of everyday life in America, and the government starts to admit that the statistics around marijuana aren’t scary – and more realistically – that there is something really big to tax and regulate, widespread legalization is likely to happen sooner than later. In the meantime, let us know what you’re doing to advocate or what you think about the whole situation in the comments below.
