“Right now we’re on the cusp of removing the bricks of the Berlin Wall of prohibition,” said Aaron Houston, the executive director for the national group.

He said the passage of Proposition 19 would lead many other states to legalize marijuana.

“I think that if it passes in California, it’s gonna launch this thing up into the stratosphere,” said Trevor FitzGibbon, a spokesman for the Just Say Now campaign.

If Proposition 19 is passed, the next step would be to get marijuana legalization on the presidential ballots, FitzGibbon said.

When marijuana is on the ballot, the turnout for voters between the ages of 18 and 35 increases 12 percent, he said.

Since there is a tradition of supporting state autonomy rights in the South, many states in that region might align with the pro-legalization movement, Houston said.

But N.C. legislators don’t see much of a future for marijuana legislation in the state.

“Anything that comes from California I get nervous about,” said Sen. Harris Blake, R-Harnett.

California starts a lot of controversial policies — sometimes the East Coast picks up on those ideas and sometimes they don’t, he said.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said she thinks other states will pass similar bills to Proposition 19, but North Carolina will be at least a decade behind.

Harrison co-sponsored a bill in 2009 to study if the state should authorize the use of medical marijuana. The study was conducted, but the discussion was left unfinished.

She plans to re-introduce the bill in January because she thinks it is an important conversation for the legislature to have.

Harrison said the lack of support for the medical marijuana study does not bode well for future proposals regulating marijuana.

North Carolina is slow-moving on alcohol- and drug-related issues and it will take some time to get traction to discuss the legalization of marijuana, Harrison said.

“We’re just a little bit backwards on this stuff,” she said.

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.