The movement to legalize recreational marijuana use failed in all three states where it was on the ballot this year, leading proponents to weigh a tactical shift focused more on state legislatures and the federal government, the AP reports. Over the past dozen years, the number of states legalizing marijuana use by adults had risen rapidly from zero to 24, even as it remains illegal under federal law. But no new states joined that list Tuesday, as initiatives went down in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota. Voters on Tuesday did approve medical marijuana in Nebraska, which would become the 39th state to allow it. But the measure still faces a legal challenge. And in Florida the proposed legalization of recreational marijuana received support from a majority of voters, which would have been sufficient to pass in most places. But it fell short of the 60% supermajority required for constitutional amendments in the state.
About 6 in 10 voters across the country said they favor legalizing recreational use nationwide, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 U.S. voters. Support for national legalization was slightly lower in some of the states where ballot measures lost Tuesday. Many of the remaining 26 states where marijuana isn’t legalized don’t allow citizen ballot initiatives, meaning the path to legalization must pass through state legislatures that have been resistant. Ballot box struggles for recreational marijuana come despite a potential softening of marijuana policies at the federal level. The U.S. Justice Department has proposed to reclassify it from a Schedule I drug to a less dangerous Schedule III drug, and President-elect Donald Trump has signaled support for the change.
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