In a decisive rebuke for marijuana legalization in the conservative American heartland, voters in Oklahoma on Tuesday soundly rejected an adult-use measure in a special election.
With just under 72% of precincts reporting on Tuesday, State Question 820 was losing by nearly 27 points, with 141,978 votes in favor to 242,234 against.
Polls had been closed for just over an hour when The New York Times and Associated Press called the race over.
Tuesday’s defeat in Oklahoma follows losses in November in Arkansas and the Dakotas, though adult-use cannabis sales have begun in Missouri, where a legalization measure passed in November.
Oklahoma voters appeared to turn out against the measure in both rural and urban areas – when they turned out at all.
According to early, unofficial results from the Oklahoma secretary of state, a total of 13,851 voters requested absentee ballots, compared with 71,000 in the November general election.
The measure also lost soundly among the 34,403 voters who cast early ballots starting last week – 21,849 of whom voted no.
Cannabis industry advocates fear that Tuesday’s defeat will spell the beginning of a statewide crackdown on Oklahoma’s heretofore freewheeling medical marijuana experiment.
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