Adults Favoring Marijuana Stays at Record High
A new Gallup poll shows that 68% of U.S. adults favor legalizing marijuana, which ties the record high from each of the past two years. Support, however, varies widely when it comes to ideology, religiosity and age.
Using aggregate data from the past five years, Gallup has found that subgroups whose support for legalization exceeds the national average by 10 or more percentage points include those with no religious preference (89%), self-identified liberals (84%), Democrats (81%), young adults (79%) and those who seldom or never attend religious services (78%).
Groups whose support is at least 10 points below the national average include those who attend church weekly (46%), conservatives (49%), Republicans (51%), older adults (53%) and Hispanic adults (56%).
“While majorities of most major subgroups are in favor of legalizing marijuana, there are a few holdouts — namely, political conservatives and regular churchgoers,” writes Jeffrey M. Jones in the Gallup summary. “Small segments of the population (in particular, older conservatives) are still disinclined to think marijuana use should be legal. However, younger conservatives and younger moderates are more inclined than their older counterparts to think cannabis should be legal.”
View the complete survey from Gallup.
