Vote no on pot? As marijuana legalization efforts stall, advocates must change the message.
At a time of intense political divisions, legalizing marijuana unites Americans across most demographic groups. A Pew Research poll conducted in October found that 59% of Americans support legalization for recreational use and 88% of Americans support medical marijuana.
Yet, legalizing marijuana through ballot measures has run into challenges recently. In November, recreational cannabis failed on the ballot in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota. It passed in only Maryland and Missouri.
In March, recreational marijuana went down in Oklahoma by 23 points.
That does not mean the polling on the subject is wrong. The dynamics of ballot measure campaigns can be complex; popular policies are frequently defeated in initiatives. Candidates can still help themselves politically by embracing cannabis legalization.
Yet, if all of the voters who say they support legalization voted for it, legalization would pass in nearly every state. Legalization has failed on the ballot recently for two main reasons: First, the states that have not yet legalized it tend to be more conservative. Second, and more important, opponents have found a playbook that works, particularly in conservative states.
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Marijuana legalization opponents have become better at picking messengers. Republican politicians and conservative groups often oppose legalization, and voters frequently look at who is for and who is against to decide how to vote on initiatives.
In North Dakota last year, the North Dakota Farm Bureau opposed legalization. That was extremely powerful in a state that relies on farms economically and where farms are an important part of the local identity.
The North Dakota Medical Association – a doctors’ group – also opposed legalization, arguing that it would make it harder to treat drug addiction. When doctors say something about public health, voters listen.
In 2022, Republicans attacked Democrats across America on crime and policing. Opponents of cannabis legalization are successfully linking marijuana to voters’ concerns over public safety.
In Oklahoma this year, opponents portrayed the medical marijuana industry as particularly violent, highlighting a shooting at a pot farm. Sheriffs and police officers, who many voters profoundly support and defer to on public safety, argued marijuana usage increases crime.
In North Dakota last year, opponents linked marijuana to impaired driving. Drunken driving is already a salient topic in many rural areas, and this messaging added to voters’ anxiety on the subject. In South Dakota, opponents blamed violent crime rates in other states on recreational marijuana.
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Republicans have recently emphasized protecting children, usually from very particular perspectives, for instance by attacking Democrats for having drag shows around children and teaching schoolchildren critical race theory, an academic framework dating to the 1970s that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions. Legalization opponents have linked opposition to legalization to protecting children.
In South Dakota, a group called “Protecting South Dakota Kids” argued that places with legal marijuana have higher opioid fatality rates, which is hurting our youth. Sheriffs in the state lumped marijuana with methamphetamine and fentanyl.
In North Dakota, opponents said that marijuana would give kids mental health issues, using an addiction councilor as their messenger. And in Arkansas, opponents argued that marijuana packaging would not be childproof if children got ahold of it.
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Even legalization advocates have opposed marijuana referendums
Many legalization advocates believe that legal recreational marijuana is inevitable, and some have opposed measures because they disliked certain provisions. Pro-legalization opponents have become an important part of statewide coalitions against legalization.
In Arkansas last year, a prominent marijuana activist united with opponents to defeat the state’s legalization measure, arguing that it would favor corporate dispensaries and that it did not include expungement for those already convicted of marijuana possession, which disproportionately hurts Black and brown communities.
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Legal marijuana supporters in conservative states must find ways to fight the anti-legalization playbook. They must frame the debate around what the new cannabis taxes will fund, like rural infrastructure. They can use reassuring messengers, like veterans, police chiefs and Republican prosecutors, to emphasize that the unpopular war on drugs has profited drug cartels, and that legalization would allow the police to go after violent criminals. They must loudly have the last word.
When we helped pass Amendment 64 in Colorado in 2012, one focus group participant said she thought the measure was on education funding, not marijuana. Legalization proponents need to frame the debate this successfully, because opponents are more sophisticated than they were even a year ago.
Celinda Lake is president, Daniel Gotoff is a partner and McCauley Pugh is a senior analyst at Lake Research Partners.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is weed becoming legal in US? Not unless advocates change the message
