“The future of marijuana hangs in the balance as voters go to the polls on Tuesday.

Residents of Oregon and Alaska will decide whether to follow Colorado and Washington, which in 2012 approved the world’s only regulated markets in the drug. The vote could double the number of states where adults can buy, sell, and consume cannabis—which includes marijuana in all its forms—and set the table for 2016, when at least six more states are expected to decide whether to tax and regulate what President Nixon once called “the scourge of youth.”

Most Americans support plans to legalize marijuana in theory, according to the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. But Tuesday’s pivotal trip to the ballot box is as much a decision about the specific initiatives in Oregon and Alaska as a referendum on the success of those unfolding experiments in Colorado and Washington.”

via Pot at the Polls: Oregon, Alaska Cast Pivotal Votes on Legal Marijuana – NBC News.com.