*By Jacqueline Corba*
The nation may get greener on Tuesday night.
"There's a lot more senate and congressional races in which marijuana has become an issue than ever before," Cannabis Voter Project Director Sam D'Arcangelo told Cheddar's CannaBiz on Tuesday. "Marijuana now more than ever has become an issue that politicians are talking about."
The Cannabis Voter Project is an initiative launched by HeadCount, a nonpartisan and nonprofit group that registers voters at popular concerts and events that are attended largely by younger generations.
Four states could relax their policies on marijuana after this midterm election. Legalizing weed for recreational use is up for a vote in North Dakota and Michigan, and Missouri and Utah could legalize the drug for medicinal use.
"Cannabis has only really become an important issue for a lot of people in the last few years," D'Arcangelo said. "A lot more people are going to the polls with that in mind."
According to [Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/243908/two-three-americans-support-legalizing-marijuana.aspx), 66 percent, or two-thirds, of Americans are in favor of legalization. Driving that all-time high of support are [millennials, in particular](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/08/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/).
D'Arcangelo said if Michigan legalizes marijuana at the recreational level, it could signal a sea change for the entire Midwest, since policy reform often starts at the state level.
"Washington and Colorado legalized back in 2012 and then the dominoes fell, so to speak, across the West Coast," D'Arcangelo said. "So if it goes through in Michigan, which is looking like it probably will, the next places you want to look to are places like Illinois and Ohio where there's been a lot of talk about marijuana legalization at the state legislative level that hasn't gotten rolling in earnest."
Ahead of the midterms former Speaker of the House John Boehner penned an op-ed in The [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-needs-to-legalize-cannabis-1541361855) calling for legalization at the federal level. Boehner [now serves on the board of cannabis producer Acreage Holdings](https://cheddar.com/videos/why-john-boehner-changed-his-mind-on-cannabis).
"When a guy like John Boehner ... is now coming around and publishing an op-ed like this, I think that's a pretty clear indicator that things are going to be changing pretty soon," D'Arcangelo said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-pot-reform-could-drive-more-voters-to-polls).
The former White House communications director gave a profane interview to The New Yorker that essentially led to his firing. "I got bagged inappropriately," Anthony Scaramucci told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin.
The former White House Communications Director, who was fired in after a brief 11-day tenure last year, tells Cheddar that both the Deputy Attorney General and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are fair and principled men.
Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director, told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin that the fall out around Dr. Ronny Jackson's nomination for Secretary of Veteran's Affairs is purely partisan politics.
Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said the President should "get out more," because his direct appeals to his base via on-air interviews is what they love about him. His comments came after Trump gave a wide-ranging interview to Fox News, in which he admitted, after previous denials, that his personal attorney Michael Cohen dealt with adult film actress Stormy Daniels for him.
Since Russia banned the encrypted messaging service last week, Google and Amazon have also been dragged into the fight. This comes at a time when Telegram is considering an ICO and has already raised a total of $1.7 billion, making it the biggest potential coin offering in history.
Weeks after President Trump took office, he issued the first travel ban restricting entry into the U.S. for people from some majority-Muslim countries. Since then, after backlash and appeals, Trump has put out two more versions of the directive and now the Supreme Court is deciding whether or not the ban is Constitutional.
More and more politicians are throwing their weight behind legalizing marijuana, now seeing it as more of a "political opportunity" than a liability. That, in part, is driven by pressure from voters, says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for Marijuana Laws.
Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey, who holds a medical marijuana card, says the drug's ability to relieve pain makes it a much more effective way to combat opioid addiction. “Why would we continue, in light of the crisis that we have, to prescribe opioids for pain relief?” Fritchey told Cheddar Tuesday.
The legislator has been vocal about getting his medical marijuana card in hopes of getting rid of the stigma around the drug, he told Cheddar. Fritchey is also pushing to legalize recreational use of the cannabis in Illinois and says it should be uses as a tool to fight the opioid crisis.
The Agriculture Department's proposed Farm Bill will kick millions of people off of benefits and take free breakfast and lunches away from hundreds of thousands of kids, says the Democrat from Massachusetts. The new legislation could go to a vote in May.
