Do You Live in a State that is Likely to Legalize Marijuana by 2017?
The legalization of marijuana remains a controversial issue as we head into another election year. Many publications, from Rolling Stone Magazine to 24-7 Wall Street, have made predictions about which states will likely legalize cannabis next. Will it be your state?
Much of the information posted has been based on wishful thinking and mainstream rhetoric, but now a 270-page report entitled “The Market for Legal Cannabis Products in the 50 United States” gives some credible predictions for which states will soon legalize marijuana. [1]
Foremost in the report is the assumption that Michigan and Nevada will be the front-runners for establishing a taxed and regulated cannabis industry within the next year, while suggesting that Indiana, Ohio, and Texas will probably be three of the last states to make similar reforms.
“With dramatic changes in both public opinion and the legal landscape regarding marijuana, it is clear that future consumption of marijuana in the U.S. will be under a much different legal regime than in the past. . .While we do not yet know what this would imply for both state and federal laws, we believe a serious effort to review the available data with numerous indicators could provide us with much better information than what was available in the past.”
Other states which show promise for legalizing soon include: Arizona, Maine, and Missouri. And as much as California has huge market potential for a cannabis industry, it seems unlikely that it will upgrade its legislation beyond current medical marijuana allowances for some time – certainly, not before 2017.
Read: Will These 6 States Legalize Marijuana Next?
Florida, a state where pot proponents have initiatives to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana in 2016, was also ranked as having a high market potential—but analysts believe the state will only allow medical marijuana for the next several years.
According to the report, Rhode Island and Vermont will be the first two states in the nation to legalize a recreational marijuana market by way of state legislature.
The authors of the report said that they believe their predictions to be “sober and realistic,” but they also don’t account for wild cards, as can happen in any social change. For example, if California can find a way to whittle down their 12 initiatives and present a single proposal to the voters in 2016, the state could easily legalize a recreational market with ease.
Regardless of which states legalize first, it is clear the nation has met its tipping point, and the legalization of marijuana for both medicinal and recreational purposes is inevitable.
Overview:
- Michigan and Nevada will be the front-runners for establishing a taxed and regulated cannabis industry within the next year.
- Indiana, Ohio, and Texas will probably be three of the last states to make similar reforms.
- Other states which show promise for legalizing soon include: Arizona, Maine, and Missouri.
- Analysts believe Florida will only allow medical marijuana for the next several years.
- Rhode Island and Vermont will be the first two states in the nation to legalize a recreational marijuana market by way of state legislature.
Sources:
[1] HighTimes
I can think of few things more barbaric than locking up people in our rape incarceration centers for growing a plant. Mandatory minimums in particular have locked up thousands of people who have not hurt anyone. Many of them are young people who will be abused while incarcerated. Well I shouldn’t say “incarcerated” it’s really kidnapping and torture. Just imagine that; a nation that kidnaps and tortures it’s young people for growing a plant! No, I don’t smoke, I probably look like a person who would but I don’t. I have however looked at all of the statistics and it’s clear that prohibition is not only cruel and unusual punishment, it doesn’t work!
Amen! The jails are full of people whose “crime” was growing a plant, or selling a product which others were willing to pay for….and yet they tell us the jails are “too full” for real criminals, so they have to let the rapists and robbers go! We were told it is a “free country” [LOL!] when we were young and stupid- and yet people do not even have the freedom to do as they please with their own bodies?! (But you can drink a bottle of vodka every day, and it’s fine with the state). And the police have become truly the most violent criminals.
And then when they finally legalize pot in the places where they do, they regulate and tax it, so that it is so expensive that it makes the former street drug dealers look benevolent! This is a sick country!
-And I don’t smoke pot nor use any intoxicants, nor even look like someone who would. But I do get mad when they[our overlords] take MY money, and use it to pay cops to break down people’s door and shoot their dogs and ruin those people’s lives and put them in cages.
Drugs may or may not ruin your life…but for those who use drugs, the state will DEFINITELT ruin your life.
100% spot on! It’s sick all right. And the thing is that many of them know it doesn’t work and that harm reduction would be better for everyone involved and that includes the hardest drugs. So they keep pushing an agenda that they know is hurting people. What does that make them? Scum of the Earth, is my answer.
I have to say though, there are some good guys out there in law enforcement as well. LEAP is a good bunch of guys. They know the real deal and they have the morals to stand up for what is right. The rest of them though put their morality aside for a paycheck. Is that the kind of people you want policing? Jack-booted thugs with no morals? Just following orders isn’t an excuse for it either.
Your 2nd paragraph shows why it’s so important for states to include an allowance for x number of home-grown plants when pot is legalized. Treat it like alcohol; sell it in sores and tax it, but make allowance of a bit of legal home-growing.
So if you live in Massachusetts or Connecticut will there be state border checkpoints where Smoky will be shaking people down for possession with intent to sell?
Undoubtedly. Checkpoint police work is seldom about safety; it’s about Money.