Some more good news for cannabis activists and businesses: A respected national poll taken every two years has found that 52% of Americans now support marijuana legalization.
That’s an increase of 9% from the last time the poll – called the General Social Survey – was taken in 2012, according to The Washington Post.
The results mirror a Gallup poll taken last year that found the majority of Americans support marijuana legalization.
According to findings from the General Social Survey, which The Post described as “the gold standard for public opinion research,” only 42% of Americans oppose legalization, while 7% are undecided. That’s based on a study involving 1,687 respondents, who were surveyed between March and October of 2014.
A little over 40 years ago, in the mid-1970s, the same organization found that support for marijuana legalization stood at just 19%, though it rose to 30% in 1978 before crashing in the 1980s during the height of the drug war.
Another survey, conducted by the centrist think tank Third Way, also found late last year that 60% of Americans support states’ rights to legalize marijuana, and two-thirds of respondents believe states should be protected from federal intervention regarding cannabis reform.
