Majority of Americans now support Marijuana legalization

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Majority of Americans now support marijuana legalization, survey shows

Pot prohibition is going up in smoke.

A majority of Americans support the legalization of marijuana for the first time in recent history, according to a new survey.

Researchers asked 1,680 people whether they thought marijuana should be made legal.

According to the General Social Survey (GSS), which is considered the nation’s most reliable, 51.7 percent said they supported legalization and 41.7 percent said they opposed it, while 6.6 percent were undecided.

“We’ve been measuring public attitudes toward legalization of marijuana since the ’70s,” Tom W. Smith, director of the GSS, said in an interview with Yahoo News. “In 2012, you had a plurality of Americans against legalization. Now, in 2014, you have a majority in favor of legalization.”

The Washington Post, which first reported on this new data, points out that the drastic change resembles America’s evolving opinion on gay marriage — and there has been a drastic change in the past few years.

Smith notes that the percentage of undecided respondents on the question of marijuana has been relatively high over the past decade.

“It shows how attitudes are in flux. They’re just not sure,” Smith said. “They might think medical marijuana is OK but not further than that.”

He suggested that some Americans may need to weigh the longstanding reputation of cannabis as a gateway drug with the reality of recreational use in Colorado, Washington State, Alaska, the District of Columbia and (this July) Oregon.

Back in 1973, the first year of the survey, only 19.2 percent of Americans supported legalization. That figure bottomed out at 15.6 percent in 1987 but has climbed more or less steadily ever since.

Morgan Fox, communications manager for the Marijuana Policy Project, says that Americans are tired of laws that punish adults for enjoying a substance that many argue is safer than alcohol.

"Hopefully their elected officials are paying attention and preparing for the inevitable," Fox said in a statement. "The failures of marijuana prohibition are too obvious to ignore forever, which is evidenced by the growing support for ending it."

GSS is an in-person survey of adults, who speak either English or Spanish, living in households in the United States.

Related video:

Majority of Americans now support marijuana legalization, survey shows
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
39,778
454
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It'll never happen... The majority of Americans supported KXL and look where it is now

 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
41,030
43
48
Red Deer AB
Minus one Sheriff.

Sheriff Says Meth And Heroin aren’t the Culprit, It’s Marijuana that Makes People Violent | The Free Thought Project

A meth user, we call them tweekers, they just spin in circles. They don’t get anything done. He may threaten you, but he just can’t get out of that circle of the effect of the drugs. Same with the heroin. But the marijuana user is a clear-headed person,” Furlong explained.
Read more at Sheriff Says Meth And Heroin aren’t the Culprit, It’s Marijuana that Makes People Violent | The Free Thought Project
 

EagleSmack

Hall of Fame Member
Feb 16, 2005
44,168
95
48
USA
Pretty surprising on some fronts in that gubmint would make out like bandits relative to the taxes they would collect


The Massachusetts Govt. is just as addicted to nicotine as are the people that smoke. If people were to quit as the govt says they want them too there would be a huge tax revenue stream that they would have to make up for.
 

captain morgan

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 28, 2009
28,429
146
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A Mouse Once Bit My Sister
I see it the exact same way, and the experience up here in AB relative to the gvt's dependence on smokes can be considered identical... Add to that the other 'sin taxes' like gas and alcohol and those numbers head North pretty quick.

Right now, the local gvts are spending large sums on policing and enforcement and having little impact. I understand that there is a belief that the DEA style personnel would be out of work, but I can't imagine that they would absolutely need to terminate these people as there are all kinds of public services that they could provide.

We'll see how this file is addressed over the next years, I suspect that we will see a lot more easing of the rules
 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
41,030
43
48
Red Deer AB
It's a tax grab if there is no option to grow your own at home with some sort of permit.

Hemp is still the 'productive variety', and that is a ground up business if it ever catches on. Hard to leagilize the getting high variety and still have to jump through 100 expensive hurdles to grow the kind you don't get high on. Is hemp a suitable replacement for tobacco? Little cigars that are all natural by rolling up the leaf when it is still green.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
108,912
11,193
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Low Earth Orbit
It's a tax grab if there is no option to grow your own at home with some sort of permit.
.

I can and by the end of the month more than likely grandfathered from the MMAR program for life. If that happens I'll be building a kick *** greenhouse on the farm.

As it stands you can grow six plants for personal use before getting charged.
 

coldstream

on dbl secret probation
Oct 19, 2005
5,160
27
48
Chillliwack, BC
It's the thin edge of the wedge of drug legalization. As counter productive as the War of Drugs has been in America, capitulating to drug legalization will have dire consequences.

Marijuana itself is a far more sinister intoxicant than most people realize, far less predictable and transient in its effects than alcohol. Anyone who has used it for a period of time, including me.. knows the type of paranoia, depression, social isolation, loss of impulse control.. and ultimately psychosis that habitual use brings on.

The fraud of 'medicinal' marijuana (it is absolutely berefit of therapeutic value, ALL double blind clinical tests have shown) shows the type of manipulation and lies that are being used to impose legalization on us.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
108,912
11,193
113
Low Earth Orbit
Are you high?

There has never been a double blind study but research has show time and time again a highly effective prophylaxis of THC and CBDs for pain relief and inflammation.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
108,912
11,193
113
Low Earth Orbit
There is no grow license anymore unless grandfathered but govt is appealing the grandfather decision wbich goes to supreme court in two weeks but no one new will be able to get a license.