The use and ownership of marijuana is prohibited below U.S. federal legislation, however about three-quarters of states have legalized the drug for clinical or leisure functions. The converting prison panorama has coincided with a decades-long upward thrust in public beef up for legalization, which a majority of American citizens now want.
Listed below are 9 information about American citizens’ perspectives of and reports with marijuana, in accordance with Pew Analysis Heart surveys and different assets.
As extra states legalize marijuana, Pew Analysis Heart checked out American citizens’ evaluations on legalization and the way those perspectives have modified through the years.
Information comes from surveys through the Heart, Gallup, and the 2022 Nationwide Survey on Drug Use and Well being from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Services and products Management. Details about the jurisdictions the place marijuana is prison on the state point comes from the Nationwide Group for the Reform of Marijuana Rules.
Extra details about the Heart surveys cited within the research, together with the questions requested and their methodologies, may also be discovered on the hyperlinks within the textual content.
Round nine-in-ten American citizens say marijuana will have to be prison for clinical or leisure use, in line with a January 2024 Pew Analysis Heart survey. An vast majority of U.S. adults (88%) say both that marijuana will have to be prison for clinical use solely (32%) or that it will have to be prison for clinical and leisure use (57%). Simply 11% say the drug will have to no longer be prison in any shape. Those perspectives have held somewhat stable during the last 5 years.
Perspectives on marijuana legalization vary broadly through age, political celebration, and race and ethnicity, the January survey presentations.
Whilst small stocks throughout demographic teams say marijuana will have to no longer be prison in any respect, the ones least prone to want it for each clinical and leisure use come with:
- Older adults: 31% of adults ages 75 and older beef up marijuana legalization for clinical and leisure functions, when put next with part of the ones ages 65 to 74, the following youngest age class. Against this, 71% of adults below 30 beef up legalization for each makes use of.
- Republicans and GOP-leaning independents: 42% of Republicans want legalizing marijuana for each makes use of, when put next with 72% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. Ideological variations exist as neatly: Inside each events, those that are extra conservative are much less prone to beef up legalization.
- Hispanic and Asian American citizens: 45% in each and every staff beef up legalizing the drug for clinical and leisure use. Higher stocks of Black (65%) and White (59%) adults grasp this view.
Strengthen for marijuana legalization has higher dramatically during the last twenty years. Along with asking in particular about clinical and leisure use of the drug, each the Heart and Gallup have requested American citizens about legalizing marijuana use in a normal approach. Gallup requested this query maximum just lately, in 2023. That 12 months, 70% of adults expressed beef up for legalization, greater than double the proportion who stated they preferred it in 2000.
Part of U.S. adults (50.3%) say they have got ever used marijuana, in line with the 2022 Nationwide Survey on Drug Use and Well being. That may be a smaller percentage than the 84.1% who say they have got ever ate up alcohol and the 64.8% who’ve ever used tobacco merchandise or vaped nicotine.
Whilst many American citizens say they have got used marijuana of their lifetime, some distance fewer are present customers, in line with the similar survey. In 2022, 23.0% of adults stated that they had used the drug up to now 12 months, whilst 15.9% stated that they had used it up to now month.
Whilst many American citizens say legalizing leisure marijuana has financial and legal justice advantages, perspectives on those and different affects range, the Heart’s January survey presentations.
- Financial advantages: About part of adults (52%) say that legalizing leisure marijuana is just right for native economies, whilst 17% say it’s unhealthy. Some other 29% say it has no have an effect on.
- Felony justice device equity: 42% of American citizens say legalizing marijuana for leisure use makes the legal justice device fairer, when put next with 18% who say it makes the device much less honest. About four-in-ten (38%) say it has no have an effect on.
- Use of different medicine: 27% say this coverage decreases using different medicine like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, and 29% say it will increase it. However the biggest percentage (42%) say it has no impact on different drug use.
- Neighborhood protection: 21% say leisure legalization makes communities more secure and 34% say it makes them much less protected. Some other 44% say it doesn’t have an effect on protection.
Democrats and adults below 50 are much more likely than Republicans and the ones in older age teams to mention legalizing marijuana has sure affects in each and every of those spaces.
Maximum American citizens beef up easing consequences for folks with marijuana convictions, an October 2021 Heart survey discovered. Two-thirds of adults say they want liberating folks from jail who’re being held for marijuana-related offenses solely, together with 41% who strongly want this. And 61% beef up doing away with or expunging marijuana-related offenses from folks’s legal information.
More youthful adults, Democrats and Black American citizens are particularly prone to beef up those adjustments. As an example, 74% of Black adults want liberating folks from jail who’re being held just for marijuana-related offenses, and simply as many want doing away with or expunging marijuana-related offenses from legal information.
Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have legalized small quantities of marijuana for each clinical and leisure use as of March 2024, in line with the Nationwide Group for the Reform of Marijuana Rules (NORML), an advocacy staff that tracks state-level law at the factor. Some other 14 states have legalized the drug for clinical use solely.
Of the remainder 12 states, all permit restricted get entry to to merchandise comparable to CBD oil that comprise little to no THC – the principle psychoactive substance in hashish. And 26 states total have a minimum of partly decriminalized leisure marijuana use, as has the District of Columbia.
Along with 24 states and D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands have legalized marijuana for clinical and leisure use.
Greater than part of American citizens (54%) are living in a state the place each leisure and clinical marijuana are prison, and 74% are living in a state the place it’s prison both for each functions or clinical use solely, in line with a February Heart research of knowledge from the Census Bureau and different out of doors assets. This research checked out state-level law in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In 2012, Colorado and Washington turned into the primary states to move law legalizing leisure marijuana.
About eight-in-ten American citizens (79%) are living in a county with a minimum of one hashish dispensary, in line with the February research. There are just about 15,000 marijuana dispensaries national, and 76% are in states (together with D.C.) the place leisure use is prison. Some other 23% are in clinical marijuana-only states, and 1% are in states that experience made prison allowances for low-percentage THC or CBD-only merchandise.
The states with the most important collection of dispensaries come with California, Oklahoma, Florida, Colorado and Michigan.
Observe: That is an replace of a publish at the beginning revealed April 26, 2021, and up to date April 13, 2023.
