Voters approve new drug laws
A nationwide push to relax drug laws took a significant step forward Tuesday.
A nationwide push to relax drug laws took a significant step forward Tuesday as more states legalized marijuana for adults and voters made Oregon the first state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of street drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
The drug measures were among 120 proposed state laws and constitutional amendments that were on the ballot in 32 states. They touched on an array of issues that have roiled politics in recent years, including voting rights, racial inequalities, abortion, and taxes and education.
But none directly dealt with the dominant theme of 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic. That’s because the process to put measures on the ballot began, inmost cases, before the virus surged to the forefront.
The Oregon drug initiative will allow people arrested with small amounts of hard drugs to avoid going to trial, and possible jail time, by paying a $100 fine and attending an addiction recovery program. The treatment centers will be funded by revenues from legalized marijuana, which was approved in Oregon several years ago.
The victory “is a landmark declaration that the time has come to stop criminalizing people for drug use,” said Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which backed the measure.
The proposal was endorsed by the Oregon Democratic Party, aswell as some nurses and physician associations. The Oregon Republican Party had denounced the drug decriminalization measure as radical, and some prosecutors called it reckless.
Oregon voters also approved a measure making the state the first to legalize the therapeutic use of psychedelic mushrooms.
Voters in New Jersey and Arizona approved measures legalizing marijuana for adults age 21 and older.
In New Jersey, the Legislature now will have to pass another measure setting up the new marijuana marketplace. The Arizona measure also allows people convicted of certain marijuana crimes to seek expungement of their records. Passage signaled a change of attitudes, after Arizona voters narrowly defeated a legal pot proposal in 2016.
Recreational marijuana measures also were ahead in the polls in Montana and narrowly leading in South Dakota. Separate medical marijuana initiatives passed in SouthDakota and Mississippi.
A decade ago, recreational marijuana was illegal in all 50 states. Voters allowed it in Colorado and
Washington in 2012, sparking a movement that already included 11 states and Washington, D.C., heading into Tuesday’s elections. Two states considered antiabortion amendments with different results.
Louisiana voters passed ameasure asserting there is no state constitutional right to abortion — something that could come into play if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
In Colorado, voters defeated a measure to prohibit abortions after 22 weeks unless the pregnant woman’s life is endangered. Previous Colorado ballot initiatives to limit abortion also failed in 2008, 2010 and 2014.
In Mississippi, voters approved a proposal for a new state flag with a magnolia design. The vote came after legislators in June ended the use of a flag bearing a Confederate battle emblem.
In Rhode Island, whose official name is “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” residents in a close vote were deciding whether to eliminate the final three words, which some say evoke a legacy of slavery.
Tax proposals were on the ballot in more than a dozen states. Tobacco tax hikes passed in Colorado and Oregon. Colorado voters also approved a slight income tax cut.