It’s easy to feel like advocating for legal weed is a rare position these days. With widespread proposed bans on hemp products to vicious tax hikes that threaten the still-budding legal market, reaching full acceptance is still an uphill battle for many in the cannabis space. Fortunately for them, prohibition is an increasingly unpopular opinion: according to a survey from earlier this year, only about one in 10 Americans are fully against the legalization of the plant.
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The Pew Research Center conducted a survey from January 27 to February 2 of this year, and of those who answered, 87 percent believed that marijuana should be legalized. Over half of that group (54 percent of all respondents) said the plant should be legal for both medical and recreational use, while the remaining third only supported medicinal use.
A 2024 survey, also by the Pew Research Center, indicates that 52 percent of adults in the country believe marijuana legalization is beneficial to local economies, and 42 percent believe it makes the criminal justice system more fair. 27 percent believed that if marijuana were legal recreationally, people would use heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine less; 21 percent believed it would make communities safer in general. In all of the above questions, more people responded that weed being legal would have no impact than that it would have a negative impact.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these views were largely dependent on race/ethnicity, age, and political affiliation. Asian respondents were the least likely to believe in both medical and recreational use (39 percent), while white and Black adults (58 and 57 percent, respectively) supported it at a rate above the average. 65 percent of adults between the ages of 18-29 supported recreational legalization compared to merely 31 percent of those above 75. Similarly, 66 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents supported the measure while 43 percent of right-of-center respondents did.
These numbers are all much higher than they were before—in 2023, 70 percent of adults supported legalization, and in 2000, that number was half of that.
As support for the plant continues to grow and advocates arise from all sides of the political spectrum, federal legalization becomes more of a possibility with every passing year. Still, though, recent happenings in the cannabis industry indicate that things are regressing around the country.
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The plant and the public opinion of it continue to live in a weird space, and while we’re all used to this limbo, it’d be nice to have a solid grasp on the culture. In any case, the days of weed use being a huge taboo may be behind us.