Legal Weed On Ballot In Four States: AZ, MT, NJ, SD

Roll Call reports:

Marijuana legalization advocates, afraid that efforts to win ballot initiatives would go up in smoke given the challenges of a pandemic, are fired up about chances in five states this fall. The difficulty of safely getting signatures in person helped doom marijuana legalization efforts in some states, like Idaho and Missouri.

But voters will decide next month whether to legalize recreational marijuana in four states, only one of which is reliably Democratic: Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota. Mississippi will also consider a pair of ballot initiatives to legalize medical marijuana.

In recent years, 11 states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 years old or older, while 33 states plus the District have legalized medical marijuana for some patients.