This year, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon all have marijuana legalization issues on the general election ballot.  While the three states are all working toward the same cause, they are also fighting for funding from the same group of donors, and Oregon is receiving the least financial support from marijuana advocates.

Millions of dollars are being donated by wealthy marijuana legalization advocates, but how low Oregon’s Measure 80 has polled has proved to be a “disincentive” for donors.  It is now anticipated that law enforcement will not spend top dollar to oppose the measure, so overall both campaigns related to Measure 80 will be low-scale.

Measure 80 sponsor Paul Stanford explained, “We’re trying to bring that money, but we haven’t been successful so far.  They say our poll numbers aren’t that great.”

A recent poll showed that only 37% of Oregonians supported marijuana legalization.  Polls in Washington have found 50-57% of voters to approve of marijuana legalization.  Colorado polls have been comparable, with approximately 51% of voters supporting legalization.

Stanford has up to 30 days to report contributions, but so far Measure 80 has only received $13,000 in donations.

Comparatively, Washington’s I-502 marijuana legalization initiative has raised $3 million, the majority of which came from three private donors– George Soros, Peter Lewis, and Ethan Nadelmann.  Over $1 million of those funds have gone toward television ad campaigns aimed to raise awareness among voters.

Colorado’s Amendment 64 marijuana legalization initiative had raised $1.1 million as of September 12th.  The majority of those funds were also donated by Peter Lewis.

[Source]