We're now just over two weeks away from closing the door on 2018, and when we do, we'll likely look back on what was the biggest year ever for the marijuana industry.
In Canada, lawmakers passed the Cannabis Act in June, and officially ended nine decades of recreational weed prohibition on Oct. 17. As the first industrialized country to legalize recreational marijuana use, Canada has paved a path for other countries to follow, as well as given its legal weed companies an opportunity to generate billions of dollars in added sales.
The publication of data showing severe racial disparities in marijuana enforcement, with black people being several times more likely to be arrested for marijuana use than white people, despite comparable rates of use, also made it increasingly difficult to defend prohibition.
Recreational marijuana sales in Michigan will rake in $89 million in tax revenue for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2019, according to estimates by the state's Senate Fiscal Agency.
After funding implementation and enforcement, 70 percent of the remaining tax revenue from marijuana sales will go to schools and infrastructure repair and 30 percent will go to counties and municipalities with marijuana businesses.
The New Jersey government estimated that recreational marijuana would bring in $60 million in tax revenue before June 30 of next year alone.
Marijuana initiatives appeared on ballots in four states in the midterm elections. In Michigan and North Dakota, initiatives gave voters the opportunity to legalize marijuana for recreational use. In Missouri and Utah, voters chose whether to allow people who are sick to use the drug for medical reasons.
Here are the results of those initiatives.
Michigan voters legalized the sale and use of marijuana
Weed stocks were sliding from their post-election peaks Thursday as worries surfaced that the successor to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions could also be against legal marijuana.
Pot stocks rallied on Wednesday, with Tilray surging more than 30%, after Michigan became the 10th US state to legalize marijuana and as Jeff Sessions, a long-term opponent of legal weed, resigned as the US's attorney general. In January, Sessions rescinded an Obama-era policy directing states to make their own decisions on cannabis without federal.
AND SO A few more dominoes fall. Michigan voted to legalize the recreational use of cannabis, while Utah and Missouri legalized it for medical use, according to projections made late Tuesday night. (A recreational measure in North Dakota failed, though medical cannabis remains legal there.) They join 31 other states that have already gone the medical route, and nine others that have gone fully recreational.
Voters in Michigan approved a ballot measure to legalize recreational use of marijuana on Tuesday, and two other states — Missouri and Utah — endorsed medical marijuana laws. Voters in North Dakota didn't partake, rejecting a measure to legalize recreational marijuana use.
Now 33 states have legalized marijuana to some degree, and recreational pot use is now legal in 10 states, along with Washington, D.C. But possessing, selling or using marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
11:00 AM
Kevin Sabet, president of the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, has already signaled that he anticipates at least some defeats after the group spent millions funding anti-legalization campaigns in states with marijuana on the ballot. In a tweet, he wrote that success “doesn’t hang on a ballot measure, a vote, a fleeting day.”
Cannabis legalization goes before the voters in a number of states on Nov. 6. This year’s highlights:
Michigan and North Dakota will decide statewide measures on the legalization of adult-use cannabis.
Utah and Missouri will consider medical marijuana legalization initiatives.
Other states will consider smaller reforms or advisory measures, including Ohio and Wisconsin.
As polls show record support for marijuana legalization, advocates say the midterm elections could mark the point of no return for a movement that has been gathering steam for years.
"The train has left the station," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., a leading marijuana reform advocate in Congress. "I see all the pieces coming together... It's the same arc we saw two generations ago with the prohibitions of alcohol."