US election results prove how broadly accepted cannabis has become throughout the country and across party lines. Photo / AP
Bill Stocker could be considered the archetype of a conservative voter: He’s a retired Marine and former police officer who voted for President Donald Trump. But he’s also among the majority of South Dakota voters who broadly legalised cannabis this month.
Stocker, 61, said enforcing cannabis laws gets in the way of pursuing other drug crimes and called warnings about the ills of cannabis “a bunch of baloney” that even people in a Republican stronghold like South Dakota no longer believe.
South Dakota’s values of “personal responsibility and freedom” won out, said Stocker, who lives in Sioux Falls.
The 2020 election helped prove how broadly accepted cannabis has become throughout the United States, with measures to legalise recreational pot also breezing to victory in progressive New Jersey, moderate Arizona and conservative Montana. Fifteen states have now…
