Several States set to Vote on Recreational Marijuana

Recreational marijuana legalization is on the ballot in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota next week.

If approved, the states would join the 19 (along with Washington, DC) where recreational use is currently legal. Thirty-seven states, three territories and the District of Columbia allow the medical use of marijuana products, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Medical marijuana is currently legal in each of the five states that will vote on recreational use on Tuesday.

Marijuana is illegal under federal law, even as individual states have moved toward legal use for recreational and medical purposes.

But in October, the Biden administration announced that President Joe Biden pardoned all people convicted of federal marijuana possession through executive action.

Leaders in the U.S. Senate introduced sweeping legislation earlier this year that would end federal prohibitions on marijuana more than 50 years after Congress made the drug illegal.