Cannabis lobbying group NORML released their 2019 Gubernatorial Scorecard on Jan. 16, ranking governors from all 50 states on their marijuana policy records, based on factors like public comments and votes related to legalization.<\/p>\n
Nine governors earned \u2018A\u2019 grades and 27 passed with a \u2018C\u2019 or higher. Five governors from states where recreational marijuana is legal \u2014 California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Michigan \u2014 came out with top scores, as well as New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). Four governors, Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R), Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R), Ohio Gov. Matt DeWine (R) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) all flunked, earning \u2018F\u2019s for openly opposing marijuana legalization efforts in their states.<\/p>\n
Seven governors managed to climb in the rankings from 2018, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) who recently announced his intentions to begin recreational legalization in his state by April 2019. And four governors, from Alabama, Alaska, Maine and Missouri, received no score at all due to a lack of available action or commentary on cannabis.<\/p>\n
According to an\u00a0executive summary<\/a>\u00a0released by NORML, the results of their analysis were promising but partisan, revealing stark if unsurprising divides between each side of the political aisle. \u201cWhile almost half of all Democratic governors are now on record in support of adult use regulation, no Republican governors publicly advocate for this policy,\u201d the release said. Six of the 20 governors elected in 2018, a hefty 30 percent of the new state heads, received \u2018A\u2019s.\u2019 All of those new, pot-friendly governors are Democrats, some of whom actually\u00a0campaigned on promises<\/a>\u00a0to legalize recreational marijuana.<\/p>\n The summary also took note of a disparity between this figure and public opinion: \u201cThis partisan divide is not similarly reflected among the general public. According to national polling data compiled by Gallup in October 2018, 66 percent of the public \u2013 including majorities of self-identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents \u2013 favor legalization.\u201d<\/p>\n Traditionally, states that have enacted legalization policies have done so through voter initiatives as opposed to legislature. But given the power state representatives have to alter those initiatives, as demonstrated in Utah\u2019s recent\u00a0medical marijuana policy debacle<\/a>, having support from the top definitely doesn\u2019t hurt a state\u2019s chances at ending prohibition. Especially because as far as federal cannabis policy is concerned, legalization doesn\u2019t appear to be on the top of Trump\u2019s list, though his pick for attorney general, is\u00a0decidedly more pot-friendly<\/a> than his predecessor Jeff Sessions.<\/p>\n During his Senate confirmation hearing, attorney general nominee William Barr said he would respect states laws when it comes to marijuana legalization. \u201cTo the extent people are complying with the state laws in distribution and production and so forth, we\u2019re not going to go after that,\u201d he said during the hearing.<\/p>\n NORML\u2019s report gives cannabis advocates plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about the progress of legalization. The report predicted \u201cas many as four to five additional states\u201d will head towards legalization \u201cin the near future,\u201d citing Rhode Island, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut as states exemplary of this trend.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, how does your governor score on cannabis policy according to NORML? Do you agree?<\/p>\n The post NORML Releases Governor Scorecard Ranking State Leaders on Cannabis Policy<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Cannabis lobbying group NORML released their 2019 Gubernatorial Scorecard on Jan. 16, ranking governors from all 50 states on their marijuana policy records, based on factors like public comments and votes related to legalization. Midterm Election Adds New Entries to the Dean\u2019s List Nine governors earned \u2018A\u2019 grades and 27Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2693,403,148,50,21,737,1051,687,717,139,179,1576,215,208,146,185,81,356,2951,357,424,98,7077],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32338,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32337\/revisions\/32338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Policy Prognosis, Stateside and Nationally<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: NORML Releases Governor Scorecard Ranking State Leaders on Cannabis Policy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"