REPUBLICANS STILL DON’T GET IT, THOUGH …
Support for the legalization of marijuana continues to expand in the United States, according to the latest polling data from Gallup.
Sixty percent of American adults now believe marijuana should be legal – up from 58 percent a year ago (and nearly double the level of support it was receiving a decade-and-a-half ago).
“When Gallup first asked this question in 1969, 12 percent of Americans supported the legalization of marijuana use,” the pollsters noted. “In the late 1970s, support rose to 28 percent but began to retreat in the 1980s during the era of the ‘Just Say No’ to drugs campaign. Support stayed in the 25 percent range through 1995, but increased to 31 percent in 2000 and has continued climbing since then.”
Here’s a look at how Americans’ views on this issue have evolved over Gallup’s 47-year history of testing this particular question …
(Click to view)
(Via Gallup)
A whopping 77 percent of Americans between the ages of 18-34 support legalization, compared to 61 percent of Americans between the ages of 35-54 and 45 percent of Americans over the age of 55.
Breaking the issue down along partisan lines, 70 percent of independents and 67 percent of Democrats say they support legalization – compared to just 42 percent of Republicans (which may explain why so many GOP politicians continue to wage a nonsensical and totally counterproductive war on pot).
The good news? Support for legalization among Republicans has more than doubled since 2005, when just 20 percent of GOP voters supported it.
Recreational marijuana use is currently legal in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington State and the District of Columbia. It is on the ballot this November in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada. Meanwhile voters in Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota will vote on whether to legalize medical marijuana – and voters in Montana will decide whether to expand medical marijuana laws in Big Sky Country.
This website has been calling for the decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs for years. We believe government prohibitions against recreational drug use suppress both individual liberty and economic opportunity (while senselessly draining taxpayers of law enforcement resources).
As for the legalization of medical marijuana, we believe this issue is quite simply a moral imperative – a case we’ve made repeatedly over the last year.
(Banner via iStock)