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California voters back marijuana for leisure
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A BALLOT measure to make recreational marijuana legal for adults was approved in California, opening the most populous US state to a burgeoning commercial cannabis market in a major victory for supporters of liberalized drug laws.
Proposition 64 passed easily as statewide returns from the election showed nearly 56 percent of voters favoring the measure and 44 percent opposed, according to results reported from more than 90 percent of precincts yesterday morning.
California was by far the largest of five states with ballot measures seeking to legalize the use of marijuana for the sheer pleasure of its intoxicating effects, and approval there extends legalization to the entire US Pacific Coast.
Recreational marijuana was first approved in 2012 by Washington state and Colorado, and later by voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia.
Victory also was declared on Tuesday by supporters of a similar measure in Massachusetts, giving legalized recreational pot its first toehold in New England.
Nevada voters also backed legalization for recreational purposes, but neighboring Arizona rejected a similar proposal. In the fifth state, Maine, the result was too close to call yesterday.
The Marijuana Policy Project, the nation’s leading organization supporting liberalization of cannabis laws, likewise projected passage of measures permitting medical use of marijuana in Florida, Arkansas, North Dakota and Montana.
Before Tuesday, 25 states had already legalized cannabis in some way, whether for medical or recreational uses, or both. Approval in California alone, home to 39 million people, means that almost a fifth of all Americans live in states where recreational marijuana is legal, according to US Census figures.
California was the first US state to legalize medical marijuana, doing so in 1996.
The new measure, spearheaded by a coalition of supporters that included Democratic Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and high-tech entrepreneur Sean Parker, allows adults to possess and use up to an ounce of pot for private, recreational use. It also permits personal cultivation of as many as six cannabis plants.
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