Majority of Americans Continue To Favor Legal Marijuana

I
wrote yesterday about the new
AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll (PDF) revealing
Americans’ deep disdain for the ability of government to
accomplish…anything. But that wasn’t the only good news buried in
the long survey. Tagged on to the end was a question about
marijuana legalization. Once again, a majority of respondents are
all for it.

In the case of the AP-NORC poll, released as
newly legal recreational marijuana sales make national
headlines, 52 percent of those surveyed support legalizing
marijuana, with 45 percent opposed.

This has become something of a trend in polling, with a
49 percent plurality telling Reason-Rupe just last month that
they support legal pot. In October,
58 percent of respondents to a Gallup poll supported legal
marijuana.

Results vary a bit depending on how the question is framed.
Asking people if they
favor treating marijuana like alcohol tends to get higher “yes”
numbers than asking them about legalization. The increasing
frequency of outright majorities favoring overt legalization shows
a major shift in public opinion in recent years. That’s not a
shocker in a country where
42.4 percent of us have tried grass at one time or another,
according to the World Health Organization. Hell, the Denver
Post
hired an editor to cover the marijuana beat full time.

David Brooks would say that we’re all
just encouraging marijuana use, with our permissive
opinionizing. He’s wrong. I may encourage it—if it works
for you, that is—but most people likely believe it’s not worth
arresting and jailing people, and ruining their lives, because they
choose this intoxicant over a beer.