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Colorado marijuana initiative could hinge on young voter turnout
The voters in Colorado are currently leaning towards legalizing marijuana this year. Amendment 64, which would legalize cannabis for adults 21 and over in Colorado, is currently on the November ballot and has a ten point lead in the last polling.
A new poll for the University of Denver found that 50 percent of likely voters plan to cast their ballots for the initiative, while 40 percent plan to vote against it. The remaining 10 percent are currently undecided.
Interestingly, the poll also asked voters how in general they think marijuana should be treated under the law. It found 47 percent think marijuana should be legal and regulated like alcohol, another 28 percent believe it should only be legal for medicinal purpose and just 21 percent felt it should be completely illegal.
This is good and bad news for the campaign. As a political operation it has done a very good job of getting basically every voter who agrees the idea of legalization to also support the initiative. Often some voters will support a general concept but vote against an initiative dealing with it because they oppose some of the initiative’s specific provisions. Post-election analysis shows that issue may have hurt Proposition 19 in California.
The bad news is that there doesn’t appear to be much low hanging fruit left, such as supporters of legalization who have not heard about Amendment 64. It will probably be difficult for the campaign to significantly expand its level of support in the next few week and it is likely that undecideds will tend to break against it.
2 Comments
Yes, but until; it is legalized by the Feds, how are they going to be able to enforce it?
I live in WA and face the same conundrum. If I-502 passes, what response will come from the Feds?
First, the case before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to force the Feds to reschedule (or give a real, qualifying reason why it shouldn’t) cannabis is not yet done and Obama doesn’t want this issue to come up before Nov. Nothing will happen from the Feds until then. Obama’s been down right violent in his attack on marijuana but will this also change? No need to run again so should he do the right thing? Lots of questions.
I-502 includes the deal breaker ‘per se’ DUI limits. Colorado was playing around with them too. This part of the law will face zero opposition from the Feds. Of all the parts of the bill, this one is the one that will last the longest. It is also the only one that will be enforced. The state will not allow smoke shops to open or license any growers even if the law passes. If the scheduling doesn’t change, advocates will have to force the state to comply through the courts. I’m sure Colorado and Oregon will see something similar.
I’m not a big fan of I-502, favoring Colorado’s approach to be much more intelligent but you play with the cards that you’re dealt.
Only through rescheduling will we ever get any headway in this fight. The states can pass any law that drops restrictions to cannabis, but the Feds will always come busting through your front door anyway. Obama’s terrified of the right. He won’t do anything that paints his administration as soft on crime, even if the evidence is compelling him to.
Let’s hope for a positive outcome from the court case and then work to destroy prohibition once and for all.