A Cook County referendum showing overwhelming support for legalizing marijuana has given a push to the movement to allow recreational use of the drug statewide, but opponents object that it wasn’t a fair vote.
A resounding 68 percent of voters in Tuesday’s referendum cast ballots in favor of “the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products for recreational use by adults 21 and older.”
State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, who is sponsoring a bill to legalize pot, said the vote “confirms what we already know: There is broad public support for legalization.”
Contrary to what some people thought, Cassidy pointed out, the referendum was advisory only, meaning it does not change state or federal law.
But its results also echoed the findings of two statewide polls by the Paul Simon Institute at Southern Illinois University, which found that two-thirds of state voters support legalization.
Opponents of legalization, though, say that asking voters whether or not they support legalization is a misleading way to frame the question. When voters are given other choices, support for legalization drops dramatically, detractors say.
In November, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a nonprofit group that opposes legalization, commissioned a telephone survey of 625 voters statewide.
Participants were told that Illinois has already decriminalized possession of small amounts of cannabis, and already has medical marijuana. Then they were asked if they want to keep the current system, repeal medical marijuana, legalize marijuana or make it all illegal.
When asked that way, only 23 percent of respondents said they wanted to legalize cannabis. Almost half, 47 percent, said they wanted to keep things the way they are.
Generally, the results were similar across the state and age ranges, though the percentage who wanted to legalize it was higher in Cook County, at 36 percent, while Downstate 23 percent wanted all of it to be illegal.
Cassidy dismissed the poll question as doing verbal “gymnastics” to reach a desired conclusion. Giving multiple options inevitably dilutes the results for each one, other critics said.
Cassidy and Sen. Heather Steans, both Chicago Democrats, have introduced a bill to allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use over the age of 21. They claim it would raise $350 million to $700 million in annual tax revenue and eliminate discriminatory and futile policing efforts, while undercutting existing illegal markets and hurting cartels and dealers who prey on young users and try to sell them harder drugs.
The two lawmakers say a vote on the issue in the General Assembly is unlikely before next year. That would be after the election for governor in November, which pits Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who opposes legalization, against Democrat J.B. Pritzker, who supports legalization.
In the meantime, members of the medical cannabis industry, which has been operating in Illinois since late 2015, urge Rauner to gradually increase access by adding new qualifying conditions, such as intractable pain, meaning that the pain persisted despite conventional treatment.
“The referendum shows overwhelming support for cannabis in Illinois,” said John Sullivan, a former Cook County prosecutor, board member of the Medical Cannabis Alliance of Illinois, and part owner of two MedMar dispensaries, in Chicago and in Rockford. “A gradual progressive approach is the way to go. This medicine should be available to people who need it.”
Medical marijuana growers and sellers also hope they will be among the first allowed to sell recreational marijuana if it is approved.
But Aaron Weiner, director of addiction services at Linden Oaks Behavioral Health in Naperville, warned that marijuana remains the most common substance of abuse he treats after alcohol. It can hurt people’s work and personal lives, and lead to psychosis, he said, and studies show that in the long term, it can reduce intelligence and income.
He warned of increased auto accidents from driving while high, increased emergency room visits and increased usage and addiction that have been reported in some of the eight states with legal pot.
“I see the fallout of this,” Weiner said. “People really don’t understand what they’re voting for and getting into.”
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