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 When historians look back at the movement to end the war on drugs, they might very well point to the 2014 election as the moment when it all got real.

With marijuana legalization measures passing in Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C., and with groundbreaking criminal justice reforms passing in California and New Jersey, there’s no longer any denying that drug policy reform is a mainstream — and quite urgent — political demand.

These wins will boost efforts already underway in states such as California, Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada and Arizona to end marijuana prohibition in 2016, as well as efforts in Congress and around the country to scale back the disastrous policies of mass incarceration.

And speaking of 2016, yesterday’s results now mean that Presidential candidates and other prominent candidates for public office will have no choice but to take positions on these issues, which could prove to be another tipping point in national politics. While some major politicians have yet to evolve on marijuana legalization and drug policy reform, that’s likely to change in the coming months and years, as drug war proponents start to pay a heftier price at the polls for their cluelessness.