A big loser that emerged from the election results has flown under the radar: Drugs, marijuana in particular, lost big.
Florida voters rejected the corporate-drafted Amendment 3, which would have legalized nonmedical marijuana. Both North Dakota and South Dakota defeated marijuana legalization for the third straight cycle. Voters in Massachusetts rejected the legalization of psychedelics, the new frontier in the addiction-for-profit business. Even California voters reinstated penalties for certain drug crimes.
All of this happened even though supporters of such measures outspent those who oppose them by more than 10 to 1.
This shows that drugs are not the winning issue many politicians have been tricked into believing. These victories — for parents, teachers, coaches, neighborhoods and children — didn’t come out of nowhere.
As marijuana has become legalized, commercialized and normalized, its effects are hard to miss. The smell of skunk is everywhere. The heartbreaking stories of marijuana-induced psychosis are more common. This is partially driven by the strength of today’s marijuana, which does not resemble the weed of the past. There’s also the increased body count that comes with crashes involving drug-impaired drivers.
People have gotten a sense of what a massive increase in drug use looks like. According to the latest Gallup Poll on attitudes surrounding marijuana, there has been a 20% increase in the number of Americans who feel marijuana harms individuals and society — this now represents the majority. The coalition against marijuana is likewise growing more diverse: 51% of voters in predominantly Hispanic Miami-Dade County, Florida, rejected marijuana legalization.
This rejection is not limited to marijuana: Voters in Massachusetts were skeptical of another “wonder drug” and defeated Question 4, which would have legalized for-profit psychedelic centers and the growth and distribution of homegrown psychedelics.
This came on the heels of the Food and Drug Administration’s rejection of a psychedelic drug to treat post-traumatic stress disorder after a scandal-ridden clinical trial for a drug that fared no better than a placebo. Even the prominent scientific journal Psychopharmacology had to retract three papers lauding psychedelics after unethical abuses were made public.
California voters also overwhelmingly passed Proposition 36, a measure that would increase penalties for certain drug crimes and create a drug court treatment program for people with multiple drug possession convictions. Proposition 36 undid a 2014 ballot measure that reduced penalties for possession. The undoing of this measure also follows the repeal this past April of Measure 110, a 2020 drug decriminalization ballot initiative in Oregon.
Opposing legalization is not tantamount to opposing reform. Our nation needs a robust prevention and treatment plan to reverse the tide of 100,000 annual drug overdose deaths. People with a substance use disorder deserve a second chance. We need to break down barriers to recovery and focus on reentry into society.
But this cannot be done in a society that glorifies and promotes drug use. Voters agree. It’s time politicians realize that drug legalization is a losing issue for both voters and society.