Next week Florida could become the 25th state to legalize recreational marijuana, which would be a big deal given the state's large population, its political demographics, and the 60 percent threshold required for voters to approve legalization via a constitutional amendment. Voters in two much less populous states, North Dakota and South Dakota, will consider similar marijuana initiatives, while Nebraska voters will have a chance to legalize medical use of cannabis. And in Massachusetts, where voters approved recreational marijuana legalization in 2016, they will decide whether to decriminalize noncommercial production and possession of five psychedelics derived from plants or mushrooms.
These ballot initiatives reflect both the ongoing collapse of marijuana prohibition, which 38 states and the District of Columbia have abandoned by authorizing medical or recreational use, and the expansion of pharmacological freedom to include additional psychoactive substances. Their fate could signal the extent to which Americans are questioning the assumptions underlying the war on drugs, which seeks to regulate our bodies and minds by preventing us from consuming politically disfavored intoxicants.
