Things looked differently in this state when I was a kid.
It had always been fairly conservative and oldfashioned, but there were no statewide efforts to pass new constitutional amendments to legalize things like same sex marriage and higher mimimum wage like we’ve seen in the past 10 years.
The police were a lot more brazen back in those days as well. I heard horror stories about people being arrested for a single marijuana seed in their cars, yet there were high profile celebrities with multiple DUI charges that were still driving on the streets in this state. We have some of the worst numbers on alcoholism in the country, but so many people here are mad about the efforts to legalize cannabis. First it started with medical marijuana about six years ago. Over 70% of the state voted to approve a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana. Now that we’ve had a successful medical marijuana program, we put recreational cannabis on the ballot this year. Since we received enough votes on the measure it looks like our state will be the next one in the country to legalize recreational cannabis. I can’t wait for the day when cannabis is legalized countrywide and it’s finally removed from the schedule 1 classification it has with the DEA. That way non-violent drug offenders can be released from jail and people on prescription pain medications can use medical marijuana with fear of losing access to their pharmaceutical drugs. I know that things in my state will continue to improve with the widespread adoption of recreational cannabis.