{"id":7103,"date":"2018-10-23T17:24:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T21:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lcpllutzlivetotell.org\/?p=7103"},"modified":"2019-08-08T12:28:58","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T16:28:58","slug":"marijuana-support-grows-two-out-of-three-americans-back-legalization-gallup-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=7103","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana Support Grows: Two Out Of Three Americans Back Legalization, Gallup Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marijuana Support Grows: Two Out Of Three Americans Back Legalization, Gallup Says<\/h4>\n
By: Tom Angell<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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October 22, 2018<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Two-thirds of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, the highest percentage ever<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in Gallup’s ongoing decades-long series of national polls on the topic.<\/p>\n

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The new survey released on Monday shows that U.S. adults back ending cannabis prohibition by a supermajority margin of 66 percent to\u00a032 percent. That\u2019s more than a two-to-one ratio.<\/p>\n

It is the\u00a0third year in a row that the firm, which has been\u00a0polling about marijuana for\u00a049\u00a0years, has\u00a0found a record-breaking increase\u00a0in support.<\/p>\n

When Gallup first polled Americans on legal marijuana in 1969, just 12 percent said they were in favor. As recently as 2005, barely a third of Americans were on board.<\/p>\n

Last year, the survey pegged legalization\u2019s favorability at 64 percent. In addition to the two-point bump in support since then, opposition also decreased two percentage points from 2017\u2032s level of 34 percent.<\/p>\n

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GallupGallup<\/p>\n

Support for legalization has spiked considerably in several key demographics over the past year. For example,\u00a0there has been a nine-point\u00a0increase among\u00a0older Americans,\u00a0with 59 percent of those aged 55 and over now saying it is time to\u00a0end marijuana\u2019s criminalization.<\/a><\/p>\n

And Republican support is rising as well, with 53 percent backing\u00a0legal marijuana<\/a>\u00a0this year as compared to 51 percent in 2017, the first year the poll found a majority of GOP voters in favor.<\/p>\n

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GallupGallup<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Just 45 percent of Republicans told Gallup this year that they oppose making cannabis legal, a four-point drop from 2017. Combined with the jump in those saying they favor the policy change,\u00a0there was\u00a0a net six-point\u00a0swing in GOP\u00a0attitudes\u00a0toward marijuana legalization and away from prohibition over the past twelve months.<\/p>\n

Legal marijuana support is also at an all-time-high among Democrats\u201475 percent\u2014and independents, who are on board to the tune of 71 percent.<\/p>\n

The poll also found that regional differences in attitudes about cannabis are starting to dissipate.\u00a0People on the East Coast are now slightly more likely to back\u00a0legal marijuana than those out West<\/a>\u00a0, with all areas of the country favoring the policy change at roughly the same rate\u201467 percent in the East and 65 percent in the each of the Midwest, South and West.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s no sign the year-over-year increase in support is slowing down.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike support for gay marriage\u2014and in prior years, interracial marriage\u2014support for marijuana legalization has generally only expanded, even if slowly, over the course of multiple decades\u2014raising the question of where the ceiling in support might be,\u201d Gallup\u2019s\u00a0Justin McCarthy\u00a0wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Indeed,\u00a0support is huge among younger Americans,\u00a0with 78 percent of those aged 18 to 34 calling for cannabis to be legal.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is time for lawmakers to acknowledge the data-driven and political realities of legalization,\u201d said\u00a0NORML<\/a>\u00a0Political Director Justin Strekal. \u201cIt is time to stop ceding control of the marijuana market to untaxed criminal enterprises and implement common-sense, evidence-based regulations governing cannabis\u2019 personal use and licensed production by responsible adults.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur time has come,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The survey was conducted\u00a0between October 1 and 10, prior to\u00a0Canada\u2019s cannabis legalization law going into effect last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Several other recent national polls have shown strong support for\u00a0cannabis reform.\u00a0Earlier this month the Pew Research Center, for example, found that\u00a062 percent of Americans support ending marijuana prohibition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a growing sense among the U.S. population that it is time to end our nation\u2019s failed experiment with marijuana prohibition,\u201d\u00a0Steve Hawkins, executive director of the\u00a0Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>, said. \u201cThere are not many issues out there that enjoy majority support among both of the major political parties and in every region of the country. This support is consistently translating into wins at the ballot box, and it should further motivate elected officials to take action at the state and federal levels. Hopefully lawmakers are paying attention to this clear trend in public opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they ignore these poll numbers, they do so at the risk of seeing a drop in their own,\u201d Hawkins added.<\/p>\n

The positive reports of legalization\u2019s favorability\u00a0come as several U.S. states prepare to\u00a0vote on cannabis measures in November<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Retrieved from:\u00a0https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/tomangell\/2018\/10\/22\/marijuana-support-grows-two-out-of-three-americans-back-legalization-gallup-says\/#3b275b52238b<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marijuana Support Grows: Two Out Of Three Americans Back Legalization, Gallup Says By: Tom Angell October 22, 2018 Two-thirds of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, the highest percentage ever\u00a0in Gallup’s ongoing decades-long series of national polls on the topic. The new survey released on Monday shows that U.S. adults back …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannabis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}