Which Other States Also Legalized Marijuana?

A number of states voted to legalize cannabis Tuesday – some for medical use, others for recreational use – and depending on how things shake out, it could be good or bad for Pennsylvania’s new medical marijuana market.

The final results in the close race still hadn’t been tabulated on Thursday. In total, 24 states and the District of Columbia have some form of legalized marijuana. Previous attempts to legalize it for recreational purposes have been unsuccessful.

The Maine initiative allows people 21 and over to possess and transport up to 2 ½ ounces of marijuana, along with associated paraphernalia.

Maine’s governor was against the legislation, calling it “not just bad for ME, it can be deadly”.

“Most of the money raised up here is from the US”, says Malik. “Now that the playing field has expanded dramatically, including that overwhelming vote in Florida, which will become the second largest state marijuana market in the country, there is even more incentive”. 54% of MA voters said yes to legal pot Tuesday in Ballot Question 4.

Higgins said he believes this will be a new social norm to keep marijuana users out of trouble.

In New Jersey, Christie signed a law allowing medical use of pot previous year, but activists have criticized it for being overly restrictive.

Legalization initiatives also won in California and Nevada Tuesday.

OR and Alaska followed suit in 2014.

This year, medical marijuana supporters put an item on the ballot to roll back most of those restrictions. According to Fox News, voters of marijuana legalization had declared themselves as winners and predicted that marijuana would be legal around Christmas. Currently, five organizations are allowed to grow and sell the drug for medical use in the state.

California alone, the most populous state in the union, could bring in more than $1 billion in annual tax revenue, based on a forecast from the Tax Foundation.

Blumenauer remains optimistic that Congress will tackle a number of issues that have been vexing marijuana businesses in recent years, including their lack of access to the federal banking system and their inability to take the same tax breaks that other businesses are entitled to. By 2020, they estimate that it could be worth almost $4 billion.

Medical marijuana was already legal in Maine.

Canadian officials are already aware that early lessons from the US signal a need to take time to figure out how best to protect public health under a new system. Colorado voters were the first to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, but the dispensaries only opened in 2014. That’s on top of the billions of dollars that are already being spent in states where it’s legal, all in an industry that’s still against federal law. Giuliani reportedly has argued that marijuana is a gateway drug that could lead to abuse of more harmful substances like heroin, a view that many experts dispute.