Governors Really Matter When It Comes to Legalization

Leafly’s Bruce Barcott wrote a great article on the lessons we can learn in the cannabis industry after elections like we just had. And one point he brought up is that when it comes to cannabis legalization, who citizens elect for state Governor, really matters.

While cannabis remains a state issue, Governor’s wield a lot of power. National media’s obsessive focus on Congress and the President tend to make us forget that governors matter too. In Arkansas, a popular current Governor (Asa Hutchinson), a popular former Governor (Mike Huckabee), along with his daughter and very popular Governor-elect (Sarah Huckabee Sanders) all loudly opposed the legalization effort, and subsequently that state’s legalization efforts failed. In South Dakota, Governor Kristi Noem has used her position and it’s power to defeat legalization by managing to reverse the 2020 measure which voters passed, and again this month she used her influence to squash the 2022 legalization measure. Past Governors in New Jersey and Maine (Chris Christie and Paul LePage, respectively) were able to use their power to promote their prohibitionist positions to both slow down and undermine medical and adult use legalization. On the other hand, one of two states which just passed adult use legalization measures, Maryland, is fortunate to have also elected Wes Moore, who is a legalization advocate with what the National Organization for Marijuana Reform, or NORML, calls an A-rated pro-cannabis voting record.