Americans split on whether recreational marijuana should be legal, new poll finds
As more states than ever have legalized the recreational use of marijuana, the Trump administration has promised to enforce federal law and crack down on drug use. It is a fitting state of play as Americans remain deeply divided on whether or not the drug should be legal for adults to use.
Forty-nine percent of American adults support legalizing marijuana for recreational use and 47 percent oppose, according to a new poll from Yahoo News and Marist Poll. The groups surveyed 1,122 adults for the “Weed & the American Family” survey, which has a 2.9 percent margin of error.
Four states (California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine) approved recreational marijuana usage in the 2016 election, pushing the total of states where pot is legal to eight plus the District of Columbia.
The Obama administration allowed states to pursue their own pot agendas, but the Trump administration has promised to enforce federal law. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime pot opponent, said last year that “good people don’t smoke marijuana,” and pot backers fear the worst.
“I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters in February. “Because again there’s a big difference between the medical use … that’s very different than the recreational use, which is something the Department of Justice will be further looking into.”
The poll indicates medical use is extremely popular. Americans are far more supportive of medical marijuana usage with 83 percent supporting legalizing the drug for medical treatment. California, which first legalized medical marijuana in 1996, is one of 29 states plus Washington, D.C. where medical marijuana is legal. Voters in North Dakota, Arkansas and Florida — all states won by Trump — approved medical marijuana measures in 2016.
The poll found that 52 percent admitted to trying marijuana, far behind the 82 percent of respondents who had tried alcohol and 59 percent who had smoked a cigarette.
Nearly three in four respondents (72 percent) said they were not very likely or not likely at all to buy and use marijuana if the federal government legalized it.
Americans also found marijuana usage with a prescription safer than opioid use with a prescription.
This story was originally published April 17, 2017 at 4:44 PM with the headline "Americans split on whether recreational marijuana should be legal, new poll finds."