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Drug Policy Reform

In the aftermath of the war on drugs, U.S. policymakers and the public have been reluctant to accept the accumulation of scientific evidence indicating the positive therapeutic potential of some controlled substances like cannabis, MDMA, and psilocybin.

Over the last few years, we’ve produced the world’s most in-depth analyses of public (mis)understanding, policy support, and the pathways to social progress. You can discover our most recent data here in our interactive data explorer tool.

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Summary

Bringing all the evidence together, it is likely that this ballot measure will be decided by a narrow margin. Overall, we consider it more likely than not that it will pass. However, we recognize that either result could easily happen. Even if the chances were a hearty 70% (which is a large overestimate here), the measure would fail in nearly 1 in 3 cases. 

As shown above, our position is based on the following:

• An average of two polls shows 48% support among registered / likely voters, and substantial room for more support from people that poll as being still undecided.

• Actual voting on prior similar ballot measures shows that the “yes” votes tend to be consistently higher than what is reported in the polls. However, this is based on a very limited amount of state-specific polling on psychedelics. We are working to change that by fundraising for the Psychedelics Social Insights Hub.

• Betting markets–valuable complements to polling—have odds leaning toward success.

• The specific phrasing of this ballot measure may assuage concerns of those who are seeing it for the first time on the ballot while voting. 

Based on our national data, we think success in Massachusetts heavily depends on persuading key audiences—especially women and people over the age of 55—as well as increasing turnout among younger voters. Turnout is especially important because young voters are simultaneously less likely to go vote while also being more likely to support psychedelics legalization. Our national data suggests that support for legalization of psychedelics does not have especially large partisan divides, with similar levels of undecided voters across Democrats and Republicans.

Citation

This report may be cited as:

Gustafson, A., & Goldberg, M. H., (2024). How Likely is Massachusetts to Pass Their Psychedelics Ballot Measure? XandY. New Haven, CT. Retrieved from https://www.xandyanalytics.com/ma-ballot-measure-likelihood