Poll: Majority of California Voters Oppose Legalization of Marijuana

Seven months after a Gallup poll revealed that an unprecedented 50 percent of Americans nationwide support the outright legalization of marijuana—up from just 12 percent in 1969—there’s some grim news for cannabis advocates: Only 46 percent of California voters surveyed in a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll reported in Thursday’s Times support the “general or recreational use” of marijuana, while 50 percent oppose it—roughly the same numbers by which state voters defeated the Prop. 19 legalization initiative in 2010.

Further, among those opposed to legalization, 42 percent say they are entrenched in their position, compared with 33 percent of the proponents who hold strong views about legalization.

Details of the poll can be read here.

The number of respondents who favor legalization (46 percent) are almost identical to another national survey announced earlier this month. The survey, called the Rasmussen Reports, found that 47 percent of voters support the idea of selling and taxing marijuana in a regulated way, just as alcohol and tobacco.

According to the Times, the apparent goodwill toward the legalization of marijuana reflected in the Rasmussen Reports is credited with the success that marijuana advocates have had in getting state initiatives qualified for the November ballot in Colorado and Washington—but not in California.

A key reason for that failure might be related to the manner in which the 1996 Compassionate Use Act, which permits the distribution and use of medical marijuana in California, has been implemented.

The numbers in the USC/Times poll, suggests Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, may mean that respondents “like the idea of providing marijuana for medical use, but they’re worried that the law is being abused,” reports the Times.

What’s your own view about the legalization of marijuana?

Do you feel you’d be more likely to support the idea of authorizing and regulating the sale of marijuana—like alcohol and tobacco—if the state were to clarify its position on just how the 1996 Compassionate Use Act should work, thereby demonstrably limiting what appears to be the rampant abuse of medical marijuana by those who are not suffering from severe medical conditions?

Or do you feel you’d be opposed to outright legalization regardless of any success in how the Compassionate Use Act stemming from Prop. 215 might be eventually implemented?

Take our poll below to help further this important debate. And feel free to pitch in with brief details in the Comments box below.