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What the Other Green Party's Election Night Wins Mean

Colorado and Washington are about to get a whole lot higher.
Brian Anderson
Κείμενο Brian Anderson

I can almost imagine a younger, surf-glowed Barry Obama torching up some of that fine devil’s cabbage in slow celebration over the turning of history’s tide.

One of the more notable stories from yesterday’s big returns, of course, is that of voters in Colorado and Washington state approving ballot measures to legalize marijuana. Fifty-two percent of Colorado voters sided with Amendment 64, which will greenlight the sale of up to an ounce of weed at specialty shops to those over the age of 21, according to The Denver Post. Adults there will also be able to tend to a half dozen homegrown plants of their own. In Washington, voters approved Initiative 502 by a 10-point margin, the Seattle Times reports. As with Colorado, it’ll no longer be illegal (the measure kicks in Dec. 6) for Washingtonians 21 and up to buy an O of the sticky stuff.

These are but two states, sure. And you better believe there’s likely a good deal of legal wrangling and unwarranted searches and seizures and jailings coming down through the haze of victory, because this is America. That’s how shit works.

But these are historic results. (Worth mentioning, too, is voters in Massachusetts, Willard Romney’s home turf, approving the medicinal use of marijuana by wide margins.) And while there’s no telling how they’ll pan out, on paper their implications are already wide ranging.

Read the rest over at Motherboard.