Morality and Medical Marijuana: The 2018 Vote on State Question 788 in Oklahoma

At the June 2018 primary election, Oklahoma voters considered a citizen initiative to allow the licensed cultivation, use and possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The initiative was successful receiving over 57 percent of the vote in a state that most observers consider to be reliably conservative. Many of the post-mortem examinations consider the role rurality in the opposition to medical marijuana. The present research analyzes the role of morality in the vote differences seen in different parts of the state. Using OLS regression, this paper examines the vote on the initiative at the county-level and considers the role of religious affiliation, political party identification, and rurality in the success of the initiative. The findings suggest that support and opposition to the state question is the result of many factors.