Charles Fain Lehman on the Drug Legalization Backlash
On High Stakes, Lehman explains why voters turned on legalization and decriminalization.
Drug legalization and decriminalization are facing “a real backlash, a real disinterest,” according to Charles Fain Lehman, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Lehman explained the backlash to drug legalization on a recent episode of High Stakes with host Kevin Sabet of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Momentum had been behind legalization groups like the Drug Policy Alliance during the era of COVID-19. Oregon voted to decriminalize drugs and legalize psychedelics in 2020. Colorado voted to legalize psychedelics in 2022. More than 20 states legalized recreational marijuana over the years.
Lehman explained, “I think circa 2021, 2022 I believed that this was the way of the future, and they were going to keep winning and winning and winning.”
The 2024 Drug Legalization Backlash
However, 2024 represented a turning point. Oregon repealed its failed experiment with the decriminalization of all drugs. Massachusetts voters defeated a ballot measure to legalize psychedelics. Florida, North Dakota, and South Dakota rejected ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana.
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“The backlash was really profound,” Lehman said.
Lehman expanded on this idea in a 2024 article in the Free Press, which argued that “Kamala Harris’s decisive loss may have grabbed the headlines, but there was another big loser in this election: drugs.”
As overdose deaths continued to rise in Oregon, public opinion quickly turned on decriminalization. In Massachusetts, opponents warned about how psychedelics were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and were associated with life-threatening risks like cardiotoxicity. The legalization of marijuana has failed to deliver as promised and has been increasingly rejected in Republican-led states. Altogether, voters preferred saner, more moderate drug policy positions.
After this backlash, Lehman said, “the Drug Policy Alliance and groups like that kind of were licking their wounds after this one.” Since 2024, no state has voted on ballot measures to decriminalize drugs, legalize psychedelics, or legalize recreational marijuana.
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