Comment by runako

Absolutely.

The catch is that when voters vote at all levels, they express by their choices that e.g. marijuana legalization is not a high priority. So voters might well vote to legalize if given that standalone choice, but it's not obvious to me that it's a good idea to insulate representatives from their inaction.

> no representative wants to be the guy

So on this, a number of states arrived at some level of legalization exactly this way. Legalization laws were signed by governors as diverse politically as Kay Ivey in Alabama and Tim Walz in Minnesota.

There's no statutory reason that voters in e.g. South Carolina cannot choose representation as amenable to legalization as Beshear in Kentucky or Reeves in Mississippi. Referenda also are subject to faithful implementation by representatives, so attempting to side-step the choice of representatives is not necessarily going to be fruitful.