America has learned to love marijuana, and a new Gallup poll released on Tuesday proves that.
For the past three years, two-thirds of U.S. adults have supported marijuana legalization. In 1969, when Gallup first asked the legalization question, only 12% of Americans supported the issue.
For over five decades, Gallup has recorded growing support for cannabis legalization, noting that the most significant increases occurred in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2013, a majority of Americans, for the first time, supported legalization in stark contrast to the late 1960s.
According to the latest survey, conducted in late October, 68% of those asked favored it, with liberal, less religious and younger being the most numerous.
On the heels of midterm elections during which residents of two more states legalized recreational marijuana, Gallup survey results showed that only 31% of 1,009 Americans asked said the plant should remain prohibited.
Interestingly, marijuana legalization has the support of the majority across all age groups, from those aged 18-29 (77%) to those 65 and older (58%).
The highest support is evidenced among those with no religious preference (89%), liberals (84%), and Democrats (81%), while on the other side of the spectrum are those opposing the issue the ost including adults who attend church regularly (46%), conservatives (49%) and Republicans (51%).
Gender-wise comparative analysis showed that men are more open to cannabis legalization (70%) than women (65%).
Meanwhile, Gallup survey results align with other polls, like the Morning Consult/Politico survey conducted earlier this year, which showed that 60% of those asked agree that recreational cannabis use should be legal.
Photo: Courtesy of Thought Catalog on Unsplash
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