No, Oregonians won’t be running through the streets singing “Tomorrow Never Knows,” but the state’s voters seemed to heed that John Lennon song’s lyrics which sum up drug trips as: “this is not dying” Nov. 3 when they approved controlled medical use of Psilocybin.
Oregonians approved ballot Measure 109 by 56 to 44 percent Nov. 3 directing the state to set up, over two years, a system of administering Psilocybin in supervised and licensed therapy sessions.
The campaign for the measure got a boost from a two-year study published in 2020 in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluding that in controlled therapy sessions, depression and anxiety patients can receive help from Psilocybin. The drug is a natural substance similar to the lab-created LSD, and which creates somewhat similar psychedelic mental experiences.
Measure 109 says patients using Psilocybin must be at least 21, among other qualifications. Users will not be allowed to leave the clinics until all mood altering effects have passed, which can take up to six hours.
Voters also approved measure 110, which revamps Oregon’s drug laws to end criminal penalties for small amounts of illicit drugs and expand treatment and recovery programs. It passed by 59 to 41 percent.
The Oregon drug policy reforms are the most influential of several important ballot initiatives approved by the voters in various states in November 2020, most of them decidedly in the progressive direction, but a few toward the right.
Colorado voters defeated an initiative to ban late term abortions by 59 to 41 percent; they voted by 58 to 42 percent to create a statewide program for family and medical leave; and approved by 51 to 49 percent restoring grey wolf populations on designated lands.
The wolf initiative gained momentum when the federal Interior Department in October took the species off the endangered list, raising a sense of urgency to protect the animals. But farmers and ranchers vehemently opposed the measure, saying grey wolves, which were nearly wiped out in the 1920s by hunting, will harm their livelihood and their communities’ economies. Still, the restoration plan approved by voters includes state reimbursement for those who lose livestock to grey wolves.
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Is the clunky 1700s method on the way out? |
Another close vote by Coloradans Nov. 3 adds their state's backing to a movement launched by the late U.S. Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana to end the archaic Electoral College. Colorado voters voted 52 to 48 percent to have their state join the Interstate Popular Vote Compact. That compact would direct all states to have their electors automatically vote for whichever candidate won the national popular vote for president, making the Electoral College moot.
The Democrat Bayh championed the Popular Vote Compact after leaving office in 1980. His U.S. Constitutional Amendment to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote was tabled or filibustered six times from 1967 to ‘77.
Colorado voters, by a 63 to 37 percent margin, also gave the nod Nov. 3 to a measure reflecting rightist passions, a state constitutional amendment to require voters in Colorado elections to have U.S. citizenship.
As they voted 68 to 32 percent Nov. 3 to create a tobacco and nicotine tax, Coloradans also voted 58 to 42 percent to cut the state income tax. Taken together, those changes may amount to pushing the tax burden more to the poor, called regressive taxation, since cigarette use nationwide has heavily gravitated toward the lowest incomes.
Illinois voters rejected by 55 percent to 45 percent a proposed amendment rescinding the state constitution’s requirement of a flat income tax rate. The amendment would have allowed a graduated income tax, which could have taken more from wealthy earners.
New Jersey’s state legislature passed and its governor signed a bill in September boosting income taxes on the well-to-do by dropping the level at which the top rate of 10.75 percent is levied. Formerly, New Jersey residents making $5 million or more paid that amount, but now those making $1 million or more will be taxed at that level.
In Virginia, which like Arizona is transitioning from a red state toward blue, voters in the D.C. metro area counties of Arlington, Fairfax and Loudon, voted yes on 13 out of 13 bond issues for health and human services, public safety, public transit, public schools, parks or general capital improvements. "Yes" vote margins were from 66 percent to as high as 81 percent.
Add to this, the much maligned 2016 election featuring a record number of public school tax referenda approved around the nation, and it is clear that Americans are no longer giving a free pass to the tax cut mantra.
Two non-taxation referenda reflecting what could be called anti-big brother feelings passed overwhelmingly.
Michigan voters approved 89 to 11 percent a referendum requiring a warrant to search a person’s electronic data. Georgians voted 75 to 25 percent to curb sovereign immunity, making it easier to challenge through lawsuits the constitutionality of a state action.
Several Georgia supreme court decisions since 2014 had expanded the doctrine of sovereign immunity from lawsuits in cases where litigation had sought to have certain state laws declared unconstitutional.
Brian Arbenz is a writer, commentator and activist living in Louisville, Ky.
Thanks for the summary, these things get lost in the drama of the presidential transition.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cass. I always appreciate your observations, but this time even more so -- problems with my laptop prevented me from being able to access my blog or know this story was visible. Hence the "test." (Guess I got a passing grade!) I am glad I helped to illuminate the less known but very important voter choices on the ballot Nov. 3. Do Canada or its provinces often have referenda? Other than the 1980 Quebec independence vote, then the 1990s Sovereignty Association question, I don't recall any.
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