Majority Of Americans Want Pot Legalized: Zogby Poll

A majority of Americans, in a poll released Wednesday, say it "makes sense to tax and regulate" marijuana. The Zogby poll, commissioned by the conservative-leaning O'Leary Report, surveyed 3,937 voters and found 52 percent in favor of legalization. Only 37 percent opposed.

A previous ABC News/Washington Post poll found 46 percent in support. In California, a Field Poll found 56 percent backing legalization.

Responding to the poll at a press conference Tuesday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for an open debate on legalization.

Voters were asked: "Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government's effort to legalize marijuana?"

Ryan Grim is the author of the forthcoming book This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

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Comments

[triplbee]

Pot is a hell of a lot less harmful than alcohol.

[DCX2]

Look up Glenn Greenwald's presentation on the success Portugal has had with their drug decriminalization program.

[mummbleswers]

YES!!!! I am quitting my job the day this happens (if ever) to open up a coffee shop by the beach in Santa Monica - You're all invited. Even trolls, you guys need to chill.

[bloodyhands]

See already stimulating the economy.

Well, soon enough anyway.

[UNLVGOP]

This is so funny...

Only liberals are excited about expanding child healthcare....and it is paid for by relying on future smokers.

Then we want to legalize pot, and use the tax to pay for healthcare....So in order to have healthcare paid for people need to be getting high and ruining their health.

Then liberals say we should focus on prevention...that doesn't make sense to me...how does funding SCHIP with smokers focus on prevention? How will we pay or SCHIP when we stop everyone from smoking...that's what Dems talk about for reducing health costs...but that will eliminate the funding for SCHIP....

And think....our healthcare system doesn't work....SHOCKER!

[Tulka2]

Honey. Read up. The United States government has spent millions of dollars in a futile effort to say marijuana ruins health. NO!!! Marijuana does not ruin health. As a matter of fact, it may just put you in the perfect frame of mind to get in a pool, swim laps for years and ultimatly win a gold medal at the Olympics.

[Tulka2]

...or maybe eight gold medals.

[puffhost]

Or a dozen!

[Keo]

Uhhh

There's no scientific evidence that smoking marijuana "ruins" users' health.
That's part of the point!!!!!!

[3dtrix]

Those pesky, demented libruls - always trying to unravel utopia...

[puffhost]

You are flat wrong. You don't need smokers to fund healthcare. Money diverted away from the legal system could be used to support healthcare. Also, we could join every other Western nation and negotiate perscription costs with Big Pharma (instead of letting them dictate the terms). Improved technology and increased investments in prevention would help as well. If we can support the Baby Boomer Generation we can get this figured out going forward.

[Mikeeee]

I dee owt.

[CJWebber]

I highly doubt the U.S. will legalize mj. However, I can foresee them decriminalizing it.

[RRundbaken]

Cigarettes and alcohol have addicted and killed more people in this country then all the drugs and crime combined. Yet you can go into any grocery or gas station and buy as many packs of beer and cigarettes as you want. Anyone who wants to buy pot has no problem doing so. The rub is they give their money to criminals and the state receives no taxes. I have lived in Holland where you can discretely purchase pot for personal use and society was not crumbling. Yet here we see cigarette ads plastered all over, beer and liquor ads and every year 400,000 people die from cigarettes and thousands are killed by drunk drivers. Makes no sense.

[not going2take it]

Legalize it!

Steer all related resources to benefit and betterment of humanity . . . .
Let imprisoned minor offenders (not the dealers) out of jail . . . .
and steer those resources towards more productive causes
and TAX it, if need to and - steer that to the bottom line . . . .

Lets count the resources saved by pursuit of such a harmless substance
and the causes and imprisonment of casual - often harmless people.

[Chbronze]

Why not the dealers, if it is legalized, then the dealers would be providing a public service. If it is harmless why keep the dealers in jail?

[sandals]

I agree it should be legalized and taxed, when than can use the money to fund health care!

So many are in prison for just possession, you know the conservatives talk about a free market.

[toochie]

No man, use the money for munchies.

[InTheSouth]

I've never smoked pot but I do smoke tobacco. I support the legalization of pot even though I may not ever smoke it anyway. I do wish the pharmasutical industry would get off their sham agenda against tobacco. My mom smoked tobacco while pregnant with me, both parents and all four grandparents smoked around me growing up and I've smoked over 35 years. No one in my family has had any health problems related to smoking. No cancer, breathing problems, nothing. If you listen to the so-called studies, I should have been critically ill or dead by now (age 57). I haven't missed a day at work due to illness for years and years. So I say stop it. If you get sick, it can't be just cigarettes.

[Tulka2]

For sure, there is a genetic componet. My hypothosis is it has to do with fat. Some people tobacco just pickles 'em and they live forever, but people who run to fat? Not good.

[hipichick7]

Legalize it, or if that won't go over at least decriminalize it.

[bloodyhands]

Simple and Sweet.

I Like It.

[AKaurora]

We've spent billions of $$, jailed for years and years thousands of people, had poor science shoved down our throats, and all for naught. It was a fraud back in the 30s and it's a fraud today. Marijuana should be legalized without restrictions for adults. Canada did a 10-year study that was released in 2001 and then buried due to pressure from the U.S. that found amongst various things that a) marijuana isn't a gateway drug; b) has no long term damage, other than some lung damage for those who only smoke it and in large quantities; and, c) there are no long term addictions. The report pushed for legalization.

[Tulka2]

Great post.... and... in that lung study, what they were trying to prove was that marijuana caused lung cancer. It doesn't. As a matter of fact, they found it had some kind of protective quality. As you say... after millions and millions spent....? They have said everything bad there is to say about the Rasta herb and there is not much bad to say about it other than brains that are not developed yet should not be doing any drug.

Oh... and "long term loss of short term memory". Heh. That's proven, i guess.

[mnyegele]

We already have legalized drugs in this country: alcohol and tobacco. Do we need a third???
Let's not kid ourselves. By making pot legal we are saving money on prisons and law enforcement. But we are simply trading in one problem for another.
Pot, along with tobacco and alcohol, is simply another weapons of mass self-destruction. I must admit as a retired school teacher who spent a life time in inner city schools, I have personally witnessed the havoc that all of these drugs have created. I tried to help kids pick up the pieces of their lives, but I often felt I was fighting on a very uneven battlefield.
So I might favor de-criminalizing pot for the same reason I'd favor eliminating Prohibition. But we still need to de-toxify our country.

[Progressive Pete]

So you feel the war on drugs adequately prevents people from using marijuana?

[Tulka2]

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Give those kids pot and next thing you know they are bringing home gold medals from the Olympics.

"These drugs" as you put it, are not what we are talking about. I hope you will admit there wasn't a meth problem in the country at all untill the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs created meth.

[joebaggadonuts]

Why do you want the government to tell you, on pain of imprisonment, what you can or cannot voluntarily put into your body?

As for the illegal distribution system, well that's something that goes away when distribution is legal. You can impose restrictions on it that work, like the restrictions on giving alcohol and tobacco to minors. There are exceptions and kids do get drinks and smokes, but it doesn't lead to the kinds of destruction you found and blame on the drug use itself --- because it's properly regulated.

Legislation of virtue doesn't work. Regulations which make virtuous behaviors easier to do than less virtuous behaviors does work. Putting high taxes on tobacco has reduced its use. Restrictions on sales to minors has too. And neither of these government regulations have resulted in a vastly expanded prison population.

Please think about it.

[Progressive Pete]

Too bad Obama is strongly against legalization, and Biden is the author of the modern drug war.

[IDIOTA]

Pot possession should be illegal, and Nature should be indicted immediately for producing it.

[Tulka2]

"All the plants of the earth shall be yours to use...." Isn't it somewhere in Genises?

[wagthedog1001]

Ranger Pharmas won't like this, Yogi.