Proposition 207 And What It Means To College-Aged Voters

College-aged voters in Arizona want the Smart and Safe Arizona Act to pass, regardless of political affiliation, according to a poll that was posted on Wednesday, October 21.

Out of 187 people who participated in the poll, 173 voted that they wanted it to be passed. The participants were also asked for their political affiliation. The numbers came out to 100 Democrats and 87 Republicans.

The Smart and Safe Arizona Act, or Proposition 207, is a ballot initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the state of Arizona for individuals 21 or older, according to the website for Arizona’s marijuana industry. Under this act, if you are of age, you may possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana.Only 5 grams or less can be marijuana extracts.

“There would be an influx of new jobs, growth of local economies, (and) previously incarcerated people will be free,” said Calvin To, a registered Democrat and junior at Arizona State University who said he voted in favor of Prop 207.

Former mayor of Snowflake, Arizona, Thomas Poscharsky, said in a document on the Arizona Secretary of State website that, “The Medical Marijuana Facilities are responsible corporate citizens and provide good paying jobs with benefits to our citizens.”

The passing of Proposition 207 is expected to employ over 400,000 people by 2021, according to the campaign website.

“Our workforce will suffer,” said Lisa James, the chair for Arizonans for Health and Public Safety during a Proposition 207 debate on October 14 . “With legalization, more people are using and it’s harder to find an unimpaired workforce.”

Graysen Meyers, a registered independent and senior at the University of Arizona, said, “Mass incarcerating people for recreational use of drugs is a large burden on the taxpayer.”

Former Arizona Governor John Fife Symington III held a similar ideal and said , “Today the evidence is overwhelmingly clear: criminalizing law-abiding citizens who choose to responsibly consume marijuana is an outdated policy that wastes precious government resources and unnecessarily restricts individual liberty,” according to government documents.

One poll responder, Emily Navarro, a registered Republican in the state of Arizona, agreed with these claims by saying it would help to stop causing overpopulation of prisons.

One thing that Navarro, Meyers and To all had in common is that they each compared the legalization of marijuana to the legal drinking age. “I think that the consumption of illegal marijuana would definitely decrease since the age to buy it would be 21,” said Navarro. “But just like with underage drinking and alcohol, it won’t go away entirely.”

Political party affiliation does not affect one's opinion on the legalization of marijuana as much as the voter's age does, according to the US National Library of Medicine website . This is mainly because marijuana is very prominent amongst college-aged men and women. Among college students, marijuana is the most used illegal drug, says the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration.

In 2016, the topic of legalization of marijuana was on the ballot and lost. Fifty-two percent of voters cast a ballot against legalization while forty-eight voted in favor. According to the campaign website, this year, Proposition 207 won sixty percent to forty percent.