Most Americans Think Legalization ‘Somewhat Likely’ in Next 10 Years
A Rasmussen poll released earlier this week about Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana didn’t reveal any surprising changes in levels of support for reform—43% favor ending prohibition, just slightly less than the 44% Gallup found last October—but it did contain this one interesting nugget:
However, 65% believe it is at least somewhat likely marijuana will be legalized in the United States in the next 10 years. Just 28% do not expect this to happen.
That’s fascinating. If the majority of Americans come to think that marijuana legalization is inevitable, could that make it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Could many otherwise neutral or indifferent voters be encouraged to support reform because they want to be on the winning side? Would that make opponents mellow in their resistance? Whether or not there’s merit to the idea, reformers can’t become complacent. There’s still a lot that needs to happen before we finally turn the page on the failure of marijuana prohibition—including winning some of these ballot measures in November.
Such victories will only advance the perception that prohibition’s days are nearing an (inevitable) end.
Tagged with: gallup and marijuana ballot and November and poll and Rasmussen by the author
35 comments
this is what I want to hear
facinating? there’s nothing facinating on a then 84 year old war on pot!!!!!!!
If it was legalize like tomatoes, I will be a happy old man tending my Haze Hybrid Sativa garden. And maybe become more sociable by trying out other varieties and talk about rock music and sports.
For the state to legalize, the people must first insist on it. This is not done in the ballot box, but by your flagrant disregard for the laws regarding prohibition, and your active engagement in being a bad citizen. It is only possible to enact social change through the people when the people laugh at the law. This makes you a bad citizen. Be a rule breaker. If enough people break the rules, the rules will be changed.
10 yrs it better be a hell of a lot sooner then that
It certainly is encouraging. That being said, let’s not rest on our laurels just yet people!
@ Jim Lunsford
Public disobediance would only get you arrested. currently Legalizers do demonstrate activley during 4/20. However it honestly seems to have little effect on the law. Infact im sure most of those gatherings fortify our enemies resolve against the demon weed.
Best way to get marijuana legalized is through educating the masses that its safer than alchol and will not cause the end of times if legalized. By telling mothers how our current laws keep drug dealers in control and that they dont ID. If people wanted to reduce teenage usage the best way would be through legalization and regulation. It will also become easier to do this when the old guard retires. Times are a changing and the new generation is tired of lies.
Nugget…you should have said no pun intended!
To see quick change at the federal level, this initiative needs the banks and insurance companies behind it. MasterCard has to be chomping at the bit for consumers to be able to “put it on the card”. This could help BlueCross to improve its margins as well.
No law has ever been changed except through the mass disobedience of that law. EVER! And yet, you don’t think we should get into trouble. Then go home and cry for you don’t matter. The best way is the proven way; break the law to the point of ridiculousness. If you are too scared to be an activist, then you go be a baby and tell everyone so, but I’ve been doing this my whole life.
Jim,
I still insist that blantant disrespect of the law will only get you thrown in jail. Where im sure people like us common folk won’t be matyrs like Marc Emery. The best course of action is public protest and public education. That said yeh i don’t currently obey current laws. However in court you can’t break the law to siliness most judeges might agree that the law is dumb but they wont change it. Jury nullification probably wont happen either.
Public disobediance of the law is all great however its rarely effective. Example 5 of my friends and I protest by smoking a J in public. Someone calls the cops we all get arrested wether doing it to support the cause or not.
@ bo
Me and my friends smoke weed in public all the time and never get caught and the truth is we don’t care and if we do get caught no one will be arrested just ticketed and put on probation for 6 months like a year later.
Jim,
mass disobedience is only effect when the group doing it is in high numbers and are doing it together in the same area. The truth is marijuana laws have increasingly been broken for 70 years and it has done almost nothing and the polls have given us medical marijuana but I do think marijuana laws should be broken but what needs to be done are year round protests all over the country, in small town U.S.A., that would be more effective
The National Criminal Justice Act had better lead to full legalization sometime soon! Asses with ears in D.C.! Show us that you are listening.
Perspective, the cartels are laughing at the laws, but the pot heads are whining about their “rights” being violated. They act as if voting, protests, all that matter. What matters is the cartels are the first ones to show any cajones at all and they have taken entire sections of the country badge free. That’s standing up. By the way, waiting until the majority want change? Wow, what a social mover you are.
Me and my friends have been sayin this for awhile now, its good to finally have someone spreading the word.
and for any one against the end of prohibition whats your deal?
its not like pot smoke is gonna hurt you all you are doing is keeping people from being happy. everyone knows the numbers about pot but there morals get in the way of others happiness. no 1 is telling any one to smoke we just want to. The declaration of indepence was printed on hemp paper WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM?! you people look down on the founding fathers?
Fuck this noise. If pot aint legal in 2012, Amsterdam, here I come………
what laws have the cartels changed?? and when I say protest I don’t mean picketing and practicing free speech. I mean 100,00 people lighting a joint on capitol hill. You my friend are a buffoon
“Public disobediance of the law is all great however its rarely effective. Example 5 of my friends and I protest by smoking a J in public. Someone calls the cops we all get arrested wether doing it to support the cause or not.”
Back in the early ’90s I worked with the local DC chapter of NORML. With a willing volunteer we decided to have him smoke a joint on the steps of the US Capitol and let the police arrest him. My brave friend did mount the Capitol steps and fired up the joint, making sure there were some cops close enough to do their part in our plan. They refused to participate. He got on the TV news but couldn’t get himself arrested.
IMO major change has come because of the Internet. Back in the last century we could only protest with sound bites, and sound bites are much more effective in using fear and other emotional arguments. Now when the prohibitionists lay out their bald faced lies and nonsense propaganda we can answer them directly, immediately, and cite supporting reference material. Since we do have the truth on our side it’s really only a matter of time now before the majority see that the war on some drugs nothing but a waste of resources.
Go to google news and search for the key word marijuana. You can take your pick of hundreds of stories each day, and most media are allowing comments from their readers. Post factual information in a non combative tone. Cite references that can allow those unsure of the truth to go look it up themselves to verify the truth. Unfortunately you shouldn’t use direct links to MPP or NORML or any pro legalization group because lots of idiots have a knee jerk attitude that despite being sourced some how we’re manipulating facts to make our side look good. But you can go to the material referenced on friendly web sites and use the source information that has been gathered. Make sure to point out that the prohibs never source their wild claims when they spew their rhetoric. It’s only a matter of time since we have the truth on our side.
@ Jim Lunsford
You are a detrement to our cause.
Letthebigboysdoit. I am not in favor of “your” cause. I am in favor of having people stand up like free people, and only those free people, take what is theirs. Your cause is to be a slave and beg your master for privilege. How pathetic. You know nothing of history, for if you did, you would know yours is the way of the loser. The meek get the earth because they are buried in it by their opponents.
And to duncan, you have no idea of what public disobedience is at all. Your narrow definition sickens me.
Perspective, seems to be a dark, smelly, and tight spot you have your perspective? What laws have the cartels written? What a joke! They have land under their control which is in the borders of this country. They ARE the law where they reign. Those “laws” you think need to be written and changed are nothing more than the rules written by YOUR masters. You are a slave, and you are endorsing that all others be a slave like you. No thanks. I prefer to be a free man. You wouldn’t be able to be one of those, it requires something called a spine.
Wow, what a total asshole you are Jim. You’re out of your mind if you think we can ‘take’ what is ‘ours’. You remind me of a fellow I saw interviewed on TV. He was being held in a ‘supermax’ prison and had multiple life sentences. 23 hours a day locked in his cell. He was shackled wrists and ankles tied to a waist chain wearing an orange jump suit locked in a prison interview room. He very seriously looked at the camera and said ‘I do what I want, when I want. Nobody tells me what to do’. I have no clue why this guy wanted to be held in a supermax prison cell 23 hours a day. Yes Jim you are in the same lala land that this supermax prisoner lived in.
Anyway Jim, perhaps someday you’ll grow up and understand why your position is unworkable and unproductive. You can spew flawed analogies all you want, but in the real world civilized people reach understanding through consensus. We all have to share the space whether you like it or not. Only in the fantasy land of your mind are you in charge and able to write your own ticket.
Yeah Duncan, one day when you grow up, you will discover that free people aren’t afraid. They don’t beg for their “rights”, they take them. They don’t serve their government, if they have one, the government serves them. They don’t ask for permission, they take and dare anyone to tell them they don’t have the right. You are a slave. These concepts are beyond you. You look for examples of where people got persecuted for something so that you can say, I do not have a pair and I am afraid this bad thing will happen to me. You haven’t the barest of understandings of what makes a free person. That would be being a bad citizen in a society like this. You choose to be a slave and beg your master for the privilege of whatever a free person just does. Who cares about such a beast as you?
Years ago in the 70s, we walked down the street passing joints and greeting policemen along the way. There was little different between sharing a tobacco cigeratte or a joint. We’ve gone backwards once again. Now veterans in 14 states can receive medical marijuana without loosing other pain medications they need. Those in the rest of the states can loose VA medications if they use medical marijuana. This is an absurd inequality. If the VA is allowing medical marijuana and only in those states where medical marijuana is legal, then does it not follow that veterans are being subjected to inequalities in healthcare. Has any veteran served one state above another or not for any state… at all? Allowing states to rule supreme in this case, or in any other case for that matter, is absurd. Let’s abolish statehood!
Veterans in 14 states can now get their medications even if they smoke pot? I wish I was a veteran, or lived in one of those states. But unfortunatly I’m trapped by my finances in Texas. And here anyone taking pain meds can have them cut off if they use any drugs not specifically prescribed by their doctor. I’ve been told by both of my doctors that pot would help me, but they could lose their licenses if I use pot and they don’t cut me off. I’m trying to save enough of my disability payments to move to a state where I could smoke pot, but that’s really difficult. I hope I live long enough to see a change. Legalization for patients is just a step in the right direction. Legalization for all is the destination.
I don’t want to wait any longer, been waiting long enough!!
@James
Abolish statehood? Right now, the States are the only ones allowing MMJ in the first place, while the Federal Government keeps happily arresting dispensaries and patients.
i think you all need to chill.look i have never been busted for a thing .have had one speeding ticket ,about 20yrs ago .yes i am for getting legial.and i am a card holding medical cannabis user.and i am liveing proof that cannabis is the cure . it is not the country its the drug com.that make millions off of the people and if you think for one min.that getting busted is the way. you need to grow up.strength is in numbers.i am talking billions not thousends.A nation wide march will do more then a bunch of people getting incarserated . it is your kind of thinking that is stoping this from becoming law . get on the band wagon not under it .god made cannabis man made perscription drugs you deside .i am know one year free of perscription drugs and cannabis is the cure . so kick back and burn one for the drug com.
I wonder if anyone would think I’d be anything but pleased that a know nothing jackass has a poor opinion of me. I find it much more disturbing if I were to find myself in agreement with such a person, and would then vigorously examine my position.
Good luck with ‘taking’ your rights. Your position is one of an extremist and you’re not going to find more than a couple of percent of the people are going to give your ideas any credence. You are sorely mistaken if you think that choosing to live in a civilized society and reaching consensus in a civilized manner means that people are ‘afraid’. Frankly it’s a shame that we can’t get fringe dimwits like Jim L to shut up because idiotic extremist attitudes do nothing to promote progress, more likely stunting or even reversing recent gains to our cause.
You can feel free to have the last word. Shouting down your opponent is the only method you have to argue your nutcake logic, and far be it from me to deprive you of that pissant “victory”. In the meantime, those who know how the system works will continue to get a consensus that isn’t based on lies by continuing to calmly get the truth out and accepted by those who have fallen for the scam of the war on some drugs. Unfortunately we won’t be able to exclude you from benefiting from our work even though you actively seek to sabotage our work through your extremism.
Hey, some of the polls are bogus like the one for Drug Policy Alliance I participated in. I caught the local narcotic’s cop giving me two votes in the public libruary. He is still torturing me along with other U.S.A. Government agencies up here in North Dakota because I wear Marijuana reform T- shirt. I believe that ending probition is a step in taking back America. Should be a top of national security for our country. End U.S.A. Government persecution that cause physical, mental, financial harm to America human beings. More power to the citizens!
I have noticed a rather interesting political trend lately. Many politicians running for office are simply omitting “drugs” from their platform! It appears to me that while they are afraid to appear “soft” they are also afraid to appear “hard”. Unfortunately many imbeciles still believe random urine testing makes workplaces safe while breathalizer testing doesn’t enter the picture. While seeing fewer politicians being outspokenly “tough” is reassuring, I fear that it may still be in limbo 10 years from now
James, quit your bitching! Statehood is the only thing that convinced the VA to relent in those states and we should be thankful even if things aren’t perfect
Meh…. I laugh at the gangsters. Bwahahaha, it’s all part of my evil plan. I will not have bullies in my society. Their time will come, and they will be a sacrafice for all in due time. The same goes for the legal bullies as well. Bwahahahah!
Duncan is right Jim. An educated public is far more effective than a rebellious “minority”. The truth is right now, like a beach ball being held under the water by the establishment. The facts are all the hands slapping way at that ball. Sooner or later the establiment looses their grip and the beach ball pops to the surface for all to see.
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