As the world waits with bated breath for the final results of this year’s 2020 election, there is one who seems to keep winning no matter the outcome. Mary Jane has definitely been a consistent candidate on ballots since 2012 and she has been raking in the votes.

This year four states legalized recreational marijuana and Mississippi approved medical marijuana for those with debilitating conditions. One out of three Americans now live in a state where marijuana is legal. Oregon went a step further and decriminalized ALL drugs in the state. This means if you are caught with a personal possession of a hard drug such as cocaine or heroin, you’ll only receive a fine. Below is more on the story via People:

Voters in four states — Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota — approved ballot measures that legalized recreational marijuana use.

On Tuesday, Mississippi voters also approved a ballot measure to create a medical marijuana program for people with debilitating conditions. And in Oregon, which had already legalized marijuana use in 2014, voters agreed to decriminalize small amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other hard drugs. Anyone found possessing these harder drugs will be given a violation, similar to a traffic ticket, rather than jail time.

The Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota state legislatures will now be responsible for drafting and passing a bill on how to execute the new policy, while it will be up to the Department of Health Services in Arizona, ABC News reported.

Purchasing marijuana in Montana will carry a 20 percent tax, and the Montana Office of Budget and Program Planning has estimated that legalizing marijuana could create about $38.5 million in revenue for the state by 2025, according to the Great Falls Tribune.

The decisive victories for marijuana advocates in these states, especially traditionally conservative ones like Montana and South Dakota, are promising signs that marijuana use could be legalized and decriminalized nationwide.

“Today, New Jerseyans spoke with a unified voice with a clear message: the time of cannabis prohibition must end,” ACLU New Jersey Executive Director Amol Sinha said in a statement. “… Unjust racial disparities have for decades defined enforcement of marijuana laws, and we must make sure that we now do everything in our power to ensure that racial justice defines legalization.”

[From People]

I am currently looking at how I can move to one of these states. I cannot believe Mississippi has legalized marijuana for medicinal use. Mississippi ya’ll! I am looking forward to the day when marijuana is decriminalized and legalized nationwide for recreational use. Marijuana has many health benefits. The only thing keeping the U.S. from legalizing the herb is 1)how to make money on it or tax it and 2) racism.

I actually like how New Jersey addressed the elephant in the room and stated that the criminalization of marijuana was overwhelmingly race-based and that they were working on relieving the burden of an unfair system off of BIPOC communities. This to me is a good sign. Hopefully New York will follow suit because NY will not want to lose its market share. I will be investing in marijuana over the next few years and watching how this pans out politically as well. I am very much invested socially in the outcome of nationwide legalization.

In the meantime, I’m gonna go rub some CBD oil on my aching back because that is all I am legally able to do here in Texas. Some day soon I hope, Texas will be joining the decriminalization gang. Until then, I am gonna put some of these other states on my travel list for 2021.

Photos credit: Martijn Baudoin and Add Weed on Unsplash and Nick Bondarev on Pexels