Unfortunately, we knew this was coming. Before a single ballot has been cast in the 2022 midterm elections on a single marijuana ballot measure, prohibitionists funded by dark money special interests are doing everything they can in an attempt to crush legalization attempts in several states before voters ever get a say.
WE NEED YOU TO HELP US FIGHT AGAINST THE UNTOLD AMOUNTS OF PROHIBITIONIST DARK MONEY.
This was the case last election. In Mississippi and South Dakota, reform opponents successfully litigated to nullify election results for a pair of marijuana legalization measures, thereby nullifying the votes cast by 73 percent and 54 percent of voters, respectively. Unfortunately, it seems that their success in invalidating the will of the overwhelming majority of voters in 2020 only encouraged them to continue with these anti-democratic efforts in 2022.
In Arkansas, they are seeking to invalidate voters’ pending decision on a statewide proposal to legalize marijuana possession and retail sales. Although the measure will appear on the November ballot, it is now up to justices on the state Supreme Court to determine if the votes will ever be counted. In a filing before the court, opponents of the measure have cynically called upon judges to “protect the interests and rights of [the minority of] Arkansans who oppose the legalization of recreational marijuana.” (Statewide polling from earlier this year identified majority support for legalization among voters.)
In Missouri, representatives of a leading prohibitionist organization have joined legal efforts to try and disqualify a citizens’ initiative legalizing marijuana use by adults and providing legal relief for those with prior low-level convictions. Earlier this month, Secretary of State John Ashcroft issued a certificate of sufficiency to the Legal Missouri 2022 campaign, formally placing their initiative on the November ballot. But now opponents contend that election officials erred in doing so, opining that they may have miscounted. A statewide survey published earlier this month found that 62 percent of registered voters back legalization.
Finally, in Oklahoma, election officials engaged in extensive delays before verifying that advocates had gathered the requisite quantity of signatures to qualify an adult-use legalization measure for the November ballot. Now officials are claiming that there may be insufficient time to formally certify the measure ahead of the coming election because of those delays.
Even if legalization supporters prevail in these legal challenges, prohibitionists fueled by their special interest funding and dark money Super PACs have already declared their intent to spend even more money spreading lies and baselessly fear-mongering to defeat measures that aim to end our failed prohibition at any cost.
WE CAN’T BE CAUGHT UNPREPARED. ARE YOU READY TO FIGHT BACK?
We can’t let them win. We know that we have the facts on our side. We know that we have science on our side. We know that we have the majority of the American people on our side. If we stand together and fight back against these efforts to undermine the forward march of progress, we can make this fall one of the most important in the history of our movement and send a loud and clear message to the dark money groups representing shadowy special interests and lawmakers all around the country that prohibition’s time has truly come to an end and the American people are united in moving forward on the sensible and just policy of legalization and regulation. For the sake of justice, civil liberties, and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who still are arrested and prosecuted every year for marijuana possession – we can’t afford to fail.
-The NORML Team
