Princeton, NJ: Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe that "the use of marijuana should be made legal," according to nationwide polling data released this week by Gallup. The percentage ties the highest level of support ever reported by Gallup, and is more than twice the level of support reported in the mid-1990s.
Younger Americans, Democrats and independents are the most likely to favor legalizing cannabis, while Republicans and Americans over the age of 65 are least likely to do so. Among those polled respondents age 18 to 34, 71 percent endorse legalization. Among respondents age 35 to 49 years of age, 64 percent support legalizing marijuana.
"Americans’ support for legalizing marijuana is the highest Gallup has measured to date, at 58 percent," pollsters concluded. "Given the patterns of support by age, that percentage should continue to grow in the future. Younger generations of Americans have been increasingly likely to favor legal use of marijuana as they entered adulthood compared with older generations of Americans when they were the same age decades ago. … Now senior citizens are alone among age groups in opposing pot legalization.
They added: "These trends suggest that state and local governments may come under increasing pressure to ease restrictions on marijuana use, if not go even further like the states of Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska in making recreational marijuana use completely legal."
The 2015 Gallup poll possesses a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500 or Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org.