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Announcer: This is The Takeaway from WNYC and PRX in collaboration with GBH News in Boston.

Janae Pierre: I'm Janae Pierre, filling in for Melissa Harris-Perry. It's good to be with you. It's been nearly 10 years since Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Since that watershed moment in 2012, 17 more states, two territories, and Washington, DC have legalized recreational marijuana use. Medicinal marijuana is legal in nearly 40 states. 10 years in, we asked you what you thought about legalization efforts.

Patricia Blochowiak: This is Patricia Blochowiak from East Cleveland, Ohio. Prohibition didn't work for alcohol, and it isn't working for marijuana.

Mitch: Hi. This is Mitch calling from Gloucester, Massachusetts. I'm a child of the Nixon and Nancy Reagan era. I like weed, but even when I go into a legal dispensary, I still feel guilty.

Steve: Hi. This is Steve from Philadelphia. I am vehemently objectionable to recreational marijuana given that I ride a motorcycle, and on any occasion, driving down the road or the highway, I can smell just about every other car recreationally toking away if you will.

Janae Pierre: As always, thanks for calling to share your thoughts. In November, citizens in five states, Maryland, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, and Arkansas will vote on marijuana legalization measures. To understand the continuing effort to legalize marijuana, I went to someone who's been covering it.

Bruce Barcott: Hi. I'm Bruce Barcott, Senior Editor for News and Investigations at leafly.com.

Janae Pierre: I started by asking Bruce how he felt as a resident of Washington State about the differences between voting for marijuana legalization in 2012 versus now.

Bruce Barcott: 10 years ago, I was very much on the fence. I was the undecided voter in Washington State in 2012. I really hadn't given much thought to marijuana or legalizations really, since college. I had two young teenagers. I had a lot of concerns about legalizing and what would happen if we chose to do so. I was a voter. I was convinced to vote yes at the last minute by a friend who had some pretty good arguments in favor of it. I voted yes, but I also started taking notes as a writer because I wanted to see what happened with this amazing pilot project in Washington and Colorado. I held my nose, voted yes, took notes, ended up writing a book about it, and here I am 10 years later still writing about marijuana legalization.

Janae Pierre: [chuckles] Crazy how time flies, right?

Bruce Barcott: Right. Yes, it is amazing.

Janae Pierre: Does the real fight for legalization come in getting these measures on the ballot or when we see citizens come to the polls on election day?

Bruce Barcott: As opposed to 10 years ago, it really is a battle before and after the election nowadays with legalization measures. We've got five measures on the ballot in November this year, and we expect all five of them to pass pretty handily. Nowadays, once you get a legalization measure on the ballot, it's probably going to pass. You almost have to write an actively bad measure to have it fail. What's happened then is that opponents of legalization have really taken the fight to the pre-election and post-election systems.

The pre-election is in terms of--

We've seen a number of states make it actually much more difficult to put a citizens' initiative on the ballot. We've seen a lot of court challenges once those petitions have been handed in and certified. Then after elections, we see a number of court challenges that sometimes do work. In South Dakota, they had their legalization law nullified a couple of years ago due to a court challenge led by the governor there.

Janae Pierre: What does polling show us about the feelings around legalizing marijuana?

Bruce Barcott: Nationally, we have seen a steady creep upwards in terms of support for legalization, not just medical legalization but full adult use legalization. We're seeing regular numbers in the 60% to 65% range for full adult use legalization and up over 90% for medical legalization. Then it's interesting when you get to the state level and people actually look at it on their ballot measure. We're seeing pretty similar support in most states. I know Missouri and Arkansas, I think we're seeing pre-election polling in roughly the 60% range. It's a tighter race in South Dakota though, I think.

Janae Pierre: Let's stay there for a bit. Is this issue more partisan or generational you think?

Bruce Barcott: This is a really unique issue because it is not so much a partisan issue. In national polling, we see that Democrats generally support legalization more than Republicans, but it's not an either/or kind of issue. We see the split more along generational lines. I think that, generally, the younger the voter, the more likely they are to support legalization. At this point, really, the only age group that actually has less than 50% support for legalization are voters who are 75 years old or older.

Janae Pierre: What about demographic differences?

Bruce Barcott: That's a little bit closer. It's hard to parse in terms of national look. The demographic differences aren't as wide as you might think. We have, say, there's one poll out that has support among churchgoing Americans up over 50% for legalization.

Janae Pierre: I guess at times like this it's not about the Black, it's not about white, it's not about brown, it's about green here, apparently.

Bruce Barcott: Well, it is about green, but it is also about Black, brown, and white. One of the reasons back 10 years ago that my vote swung in favor of legalization was the argument that my friend brought to me, which was like, "Look, you don't have to think about or worry about this issue because you're a middle-aged white guy." For people of color, this is a real fear out there. People of color, especially Black people in America, are four times more likely to be stopped and arrested for marijuana than white people. That's a nationwide average. It's much worse in some districts.

That really made me look into the issue a little more and think a little deeper about how I was casting my vote and how we were going about enforcing these laws and in ways that were really inequitable. That's what really swung my vote. I think that's what swings the vote of a number of people. The money issue doesn't come in. It's a secondary issue. It's nice to have tax revenue from cannabis, but for most people, that's not really the primary reason they're voting for it.

Janae Pierre: Let's talk about the five states with marijuana on the ballot next month. With the exception of Maryland, the states considering these measures are not coastal states, and they're seen, in fact, as more conservative. It's taken 10 years, but what's brought these states to finally consider legalization?

Bruce Barcott: It's funny, legalization has been a movement that started on the West Coast, jumped to the East Coast, and now is making its way inward to the American heartland. I think that the folks in these states have watched how it's worked out in the coastal regions, and it's worked out pretty well. The pillars of society have not fallen. There's not been a rise in teen use in states that have legalized. I think that a number of these states also have had their own experience, and it's been generally a positive one with medical marijuana. In Missouri and Arkansas, those are places where medical marijuana has been there for a while and people have come to have a certain level of comfort with that.

Janae Pierre: Yes, you mentioned medicinal marijuana happening in Arkansas and Missouri. Also North Dakota and South Dakota will see marijuana legalization there on the ballot as well. Now, in North Dakota, their measure would allow adults 21 and older to own an ounce of the drug or three marijuana plants. Is that on par with other state measures?

Bruce Barcott: Yes, it is. Generally, one ounce is what we see as the standard for most legalization laws, one ounce for personal possession. Then it's generally somewhere between three and six plants for personal home growing. It's funny, home growing has become a really interesting issue. Some states include it, some states don't. Famously, in my world, Washington State does not allow home-grow. New Jersey does not allow home-grow. I'm not sure why that is. Where home-grow has been allowed, there really has not been a a massive boom in folks growing massive plants in their backyards. It's fun. It's like they're growing tomatoes and they have a little harvest in September, October every year. That's about it.

Janae Pierre: Is that surprising or no?

Bruce Barcott: Surprising that they're growing it or surprising that states don't allow it?

Janae Pierre: That they're growing it.

Bruce Barcott: No, not surprising at all. It's a fun plant to grow. It grows quickly and especially when you get into the summer months. It's a fun plant. Honestly, it's a beautiful little plant. Those leaves are cool.

Janae Pierre: Actually, I have a neighbor who has a marijuana plant. I pass it every day and I'm like, "Look how beautiful that is."

Bruce Barcott: Yes. Honestly, sometimes we cover this area every day, and sometimes we are reminded that what we're talking about is a plant. The people who are growing it are farmers. The people who are doing research on it are [unintelligible 00:11:03]. It is a really, really fascinating plant.

Janae Pierre: Let's look quickly at South Dakota. Now, this is not their first time trying to vote on this. Any reasons as to why it was more successful this go around?

Bruce Barcott: Well, it's interesting this is one of those where the battle was fought after the election last time around. A few years ago, South Dakota passed a full adult use legalization measure. The governor of that state and some others challenged the law because of a technicality that said-- I believe it was a constitutional amendment and in their state constitutional amendments can only cover one subject. Well, they argued that legalizing and regulating were two different subjects. The state court went along with it. Here we are voting on it again. This time around, we're only voting on legalization in South Dakota. If they legalize in South Dakota, it will be legal to possess but it won't be legal to buy or sell marijuana.

Janae Pierre: Wow, that's interesting.

Bruce Barcott: You'll have to magically make it appear if you want it in South Dakota. The idea there is I think if you legalize it, then the state legislature hopefully would come in and pass a law with some reasonable ways to regulate and allow people to sell it legally.

Janae Pierre: Yes, setting up dispensaries and such.

Bruce Barcott: Yes.

Janae Pierre: It's not just states that are considering marijuana ballot measures, there are also cities that are voting as well. Now, in the instance of cities, the votes have to do with depenalization as in Texas and decriminalization as in Ohio. What do these more local and municipal votes tell us?

Bruce Barcott: What they tell us is that in states that haven't yet legalized like Texas, like Ohio, a number of cities, they say that states are the laboratory of democracy then cities are the laboratories of state democracy. I think we see a number of people in cities trying to take a lead and say, "We're going to decriminalize in our city." What that usually means is if that measure passes, it sends a message to the local law enforcement agencies that says, "Look, we are making marijuana law enforcement in this city the lowest priority. We have better ways to spend our time and our tax dollars, so stop arresting people for having a joint on them in their pocket."

Something like this. That's one of the many routes of statewide legalization was back in the day. A number of cities starting with places like San Francisco and Seattle passed laws that said, "Look, we are making this the lowest priority for our law enforcement agencies."

Janae Pierre: Bruce Barcott, Senior Editor at Leafly, thanks for joining us today.

Bruce Barcott: Sure, been a pleasure.

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