New Mexico passes marijuana legalization legislation

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday signed a marijuana legalization invoice into legislation, making her state the 17th within the nation to legalize marijuana.

Beneath the legislation, adults 21 and older will be capable to use and develop marijuana for leisure functions. The state will launch a authorized, regulated market, anticipated to start out in 2022, with hashish merchandise taxed at ranges past the state’s gross sales tax. One other measure will let individuals with previous marijuana convictions expunge their data, and make individuals at present serving a punishment for a marijuana-related crime eligible for resentencing.

Lujan Grisham has labored laborious for legalization over the previous few years, calling a particular session of the legislature in late March to push lawmakers to get a authorized hashish invoice to her desk. After a fast however chaotic back-and-forth, the state’s Home and Senate agreed to the laws that Lujan Grisham has now signed into legislation.

New Mexico had already legalized marijuana for medical functions, going again to 2007. The brand new legislation expands legalization to leisure use.

Marijuana stays unlawful beneath federal legislation. However beginning with former President Barack Obama’s administration, the federal authorities has, usually, allowed states to legalize hashish with minimal federal interference.

With New Mexico’s legislation, 17 states and Washington, DC, have now legalized marijuana for leisure functions, though DC doesn’t permit leisure gross sales. (South Dakota voters accredited a poll initiative to legalize hashish in November, however that measure’s future is unsure, because it’s caught up in authorized battles.)

Supporters of legalization argue that it eliminates the harms of marijuana prohibition: the a whole bunch of 1000’s of arrests across the US, the racial disparities behind these arrests, and the billions of {dollars} that circulation from the black marketplace for illicit marijuana to drug cartels that then use the cash for violent operations around the globe. All of this, legalization advocates say, will outweigh any of the potential downsides — equivalent to elevated hashish use — that may include legalization.

Opponents, in the meantime, declare that legalization will create an enormous marijuana trade that can market the drug irresponsibly. They level to America’s experiences with the alcohol and tobacco industries particularly, which have constructed their monetary empires largely on the backs of the heaviest shoppers of their merchandise. They usually argue ending prohibition may end in much more individuals utilizing pot, doubtlessly resulting in unexpected adverse well being penalties.

No less than in New Mexico, supporters of legalization have come out on prime.

For extra on the controversy over marijuana legalization, learn Vox’s explainer.