Voters in California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine have opted to legalise recreational marijuana in their states. Several others – North Dakota, Arkansas, Florida and Montana – have passed measures to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes, as prescribed by a doctor. Only one state, Arizona, rejected marijuana legislation that appeared on their ballot paper.

California the ‘Silicon Valley’ of pot

Marijuana’s Election Day victory has brought the number of states where the drug’s use is legalised to 28, placing around one-quarter of the US population in areas that have rejected prohibition in favour of taxation and regulation. According to CalCann Holdings partner and general counsel Aaron Herzberg, the move to legalise recreational use in California is particularly significant: ‘Approving recreational marijuana in California, the sixth-largest economy in the world, and a state that often sets the trend nationwide, is the death knell of a failed policy of prohibition. California is now poised to… take back its place from Colorado as the Silicon Valley of marijuana,’ he told Forbes.

Pushing for federal reform

At the federal level, marijuana is still viewed by the US Government as one of the ‘most dangerous’ illicit drugs – a category it shares with the likes of heroin and LSD. Federal lawmakers and regulators also refute that there is currently any ‘accepted medical use’ for the plant. However, pro-pot activists hope that creeping victories at the state level may eventually chip away at federal-level prohibition. ‘November 8 is the most important day in the history of the marijuana legalization movement,’ activist and drug policy reform group Marijuana Majority chairman Tom Angell told The Huffington Post. ‘Big wins will dramatically accelerate our push to finally end federal marijuana prohibition, perhaps as soon as 2017.’

Sources: Huffington Post; Forbes; Washington Post