Why legalization lost at the ballot box.
Kamala Harris’s decisive loss may have grabbed the headlines, but there was another big loser in this election: drugs.
In Florida, voters failed to approve a constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational marijuana, defying both expectations and the endorsement of president-elect Donald Trump. Voters in South and North Dakota defeated legal weed initiatives, too, by decisive margins—the second and third time for each state, respectively. Bright-blue Massachusetts had the chance to become the third state, after Oregon and Colorado, to legalize psychedelic drugs. Polls suggested Question 4 was too close to call, but Bay Staters ended up rejecting it by a 14-point margin. Even Cambridge and Boston could barely post majorities.
These votes came from the grassroots, defeating big-money campaigns for legalization. The pro-legalization camp in Florida, backed by the massive cannabis company Trulieve, spent nearly $150 million, more than any prior recreational marijuana campaign. The Yes on 4 campaign in Massachusetts spent just $7 million, but that was still 73 times more than the opposition.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Free Press
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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