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California Medical Marijuana Initiative Polls at Nearly 60%

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #720)

A medical marijuana initiative aiming at the November ballot found nearly 60% support in a poll conducted last week. The Probolsky Research poll reported that 34.5% of respondents would "definitely vote yes," 22.5% would "probably vote yes," and 2.3% were "leaning toward" a yes vote.That comes out to 59.8% saying they favor the initiative

The initiative, the Medical Marijuana Regulation, Control, and Tax Act (MMRCTA) would impose comprehensive, statewide regulations on medical marijuana distribution. The act would create a state medical marijuana board, require all dispensaries and commercial cultivation operations to be licensed after July 1, 2013, and impose a 2.5% state medical marijuana sales tax. (For more detail on the initiative, see our recent feature article here.)

Only 23.6% of respondents would definitely vote no, with another 9.7% who would probably vote no, and an additional 2.0% who were leaning toward no, for a total "no" vote of 34.3%. Some 5.5% of respondents were either decisively uncertain or refused to answer.

The question respondents answered was directly about the MMRCTA: "The California Medical Marijuana Regulation Act may appear on the November ballot in California. It reads: 'Creates a state enforcement division to regulate and control all entities involved in the commercial cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and sale of medical marijuana in California; requires their mandatory registration with the state; and establishes a state excise tax of upon all medical marijuana grown for sale in California.' If the election were held today, would you vote Yes to approve or No to reject this initiative? And would you say that you would definitely vote [yes/no] or probably vote [yes/no]? If unsure, would you say that you lean one way or another?"

Only limited additional polling data is available at this point, but Probolsky did provide data on where support for the initiative was strongest: among Democrats (65.8%), unaffiliated voters (67.4%), foreign-born voters (67.5%), Asian voters (66.7%), and those who feel California is on the right track (68.4%). Democratic voters over age 55 are especially supportive at 70.0%.

The poll was conducted last week in English and Spanish using landline and cell phones. A total of 750 surveys were recorded, yielding a margin of error of +-3.7%.

The MMRTC campaign has a self-imposed goal of raising a million dollars by February 9 and estimates it could take twice that much for a successful signature-gathering campaign. This poll should help push them toward that goal. The conventional wisdom is that initiatives need to be polling at 60% or above before the campaign begins, and MMRTC is very, very close.

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

Church (not verified)

I hope the House goes Dem in the 2012 election so they can review the present bill submitted by Barney Frank that will lower the schedule of reef to a schedule 2 or 3. That one move will help states make reef legal across the country. The bill is being held up by the Repugnant committee chairman from Texas. The infighting in different states will cause the rights of reef smokers to come at too slow a pace. We need one loud voice, not bickering. It is a proven fact (Please don’t make me cite my sources.) that the Prop 19 of 2010 was defeated because of the greed of: 1. the Mexican immigrants who make a living from smuggling. (60% of Latinos voted “NO”.) 2. the LA medicinal community. See map - http://laist.com/2010/11/03/map_which_counties_voted_yes_on_pro.php 3. the reef farmers in the three “Emerald Triangle” counties. See same map. http://laist.com/2010/11/03/map_which_counties_voted_yes_on_pro.php

Wed, 02/08/2012 - 1:12pm Permalink

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