Washington, DC: Nearly six out of ten Americans support legalizing cannabis, according to a just released Public Policy Polling automated telephone survey of 1,325 voters, commissioned by the Marijuana Policy Project.
58 percent of respondents say that marijuana ‘should be legal.’ Only 34 percent of respondents oppose the notion of legalizing cannabis. A solid plurality of voters (47 percent of respondents versus 33 percent) say that the federal government should not interfere with newly passed marijuana legalization measures in Colorado and Washington.
Male respondents endorse legalization by a greater margin than women. 62 percent of men backed legalization; 54 percent of female respondents endorse legalizing marijuana.
A majority of Democrats and independents back legalization (68 percent and 59 percent respectively), while a majority of Republicans fail to do so (42 percent).
A separate Quinnipiac University poll of 1,949 voters released this week reports that 51 percent of the public supports legalization.
Detailed results of the Public Policy Poll are available online at: http://www.mpp.org/assets/pdfs/blog/MPPResults.pdf.