According to a recent poll, a sizable majority of American voters, including the majority of Republicans, Democrats, and independents, support federal marijuana legalization. Additionally, majorities support legislation designed to advance industry equity. According to a survey by Data for Progress, 66% of Americans support making marijuana legal on a national level.
This figure is consistent with many other polls taken in recent years. Across the political spectrum, there is support for the reform; 52% of Republicans, 75% of Democrats, and 67% of Independents feel that cannabis prohibition should cease.
Data for Progress also inquired about two significant equity provisions included in New York’s legalization of marijuana, one of which reserves a certain number of cannabis business licenses for those who have been disproportionately harmed by the drug war and the other of which allows a portion of marijuana tax money for community reinvestment.
NEW POLL: Sixty-five percent of voters support the federal legalization of recreational marijuana.
Voters also support marijuana policies that prioritize minority communities for dispensary licenses and tax revenue.https://t.co/cU26C1VD56
— Data for Progress (@DataProgress) January 17, 2023
If cannabis is federally legalized, around half of the survey’s participants were asked if the former policy should be implemented nationwide, and the remaining participants were asked about the latter. 57 percent of respondents to a question about licensing priorities stated they supported reserving licenses for “those from communities that were disproportionately disadvantaged by the enforcement of cannabis prohibition” as required by New York’s program.
Among them are 43% of Republicans, 69% of Democrats, and 59% of independents. The other proposal would allocate a sizeable portion of cannabis tax revenue to a grant fund for non-profit organizations and local governments in order to support “community-based initiative programs, such as job placement and skill services, substance use treatment programs, and financial literacy courses,” is supported by 65 percent of likely voters.
That program has 76 percent of Democratic support, 70 percent of Independent support, and 51 percent of Republican support. In their analysis of the findings, Data for Progress stated that “our poll suggests that voters are ready for the U.S. government to eventually legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana.”
It also demonstrates that voters support enacting fair policies that benefit minority communities in conjunction with the legalization of recreational marijuana, including allocating a portion of the proceeds to community grant funds and reserving dispensary licenses for those negatively impacted by cannabis prohibition.
The group declared, “It is time for the United States government to make up for its past errors from the failed ‘War on Drugs and legalize recreational marijuana while helping those communities that were severely impacted.
With a +/- 3 percentage point margin of error, interviews with 1,228 likely voters were conducted for the first portion of the survey on federal legalization from December 22 to December 27. 620 of the respondents were questioned about licensing, while 606 were questioned on the grant fund proposal.
Once again containing bipartisan majorities, Data for Progress issued a separate poll in November that revealed that about three out of four Americans support the expungement of earlier cannabis convictions and the ability of banks to deal with state-legal marijuana firms.
Additionally, the group released a survey the previous year that found 52% of Americans strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that “people of color are unfairly punished for marijuana possession relative to white individuals.” Only one in four Republicans, though, agreed with that assertion.
