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Public Opinion: Support for Legalizing and Taxing Marijuana at 49% in Colorado, Rasmussen Poll Finds

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #634)
Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy

At the same time Colorado legislators were approving a bill to impose new restrictions on medical marijuana dispensaries, a near majority of Colorado voters were telling the Rasmussen Report poll they favor legalizing and taxing pot. Some 49% of respondents said it should be taxed and legalized, while 39% disagreed and 13% were undecided.

As well-known Colorado marijuana activist Mason Tvert of SAFER noted in the Huffington Post this week, legal weed is polling higher than any of the state's contenders for the governorship or the US Senate. No senatorial candidate is polling higher than 48% and no gubernatorial candidate is polling higher than 47%.

Tvert has already filed a legalization initiative with state authorities, but up until now, it was seen mainly as a placeholder while Tvert and others were looking ahead toward 2012. That could change now -- there is still time to get on the ballot this year -- but most experienced initiative organizers say a measure should begin with around 60% support.

The numbers are higher than in 2006, when a legalization initiative lost with 41% of the vote. But activists would like to see them go higher still.

Rasmussen found that most men supported legalization, while most women did not. Democrats and independents supported legalization, while Republicans did not.

The poll was taken May 10 and sampled 500 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5%, with a 95% level of confidence.

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

Eddie S (not verified)

Great Idea, we need to do something to stop the overcrowding going on in all 50 States and costing Tax payers Millions in money on the table as well as cutting out all the BAD things that happen trying to hide.

I am willing to pay but one thing that needs addressing is Insurance Company payment rejection due to
the power possessed by them,(Ins. Co.) because that will be an issue. Time is sensitive to us not so much to BCBS, Nationwide, AIG, & the list goes on and on.

Fri, 05/28/2010 - 1:15pm Permalink

I wish we would all stop using the word: LEGALIZE, and substitute the word REGULATE. "Legalize" suggests a free-for-all where anything goes. Actually this is the condition under prohibition, but few, particularly women, realize this mechanism.

REGULATION on the other hand is true control. What can be seen can be regulated.

This is the message that must be delivered to women who want to protect their children: Regulation IS Law and Order.

Fri, 05/28/2010 - 1:37pm Permalink
Carl Darby (not verified)

In reply to by Brinna Nanda (not verified)

While we're at it lets regulate tomatoes and black-eyed peas!

People have been known to consume far too many. It is time for the free-for all to come to an end.

In addition people should pay outrageous taxes on both tomatoes and black-eyed peas. How can we possibly pay for all of the wars, bank bail-outs, and bloated government agencies if pea eaters and tomato eaters don't pay their fair share?????

HOW?

Mon, 05/31/2010 - 1:03am Permalink
maxwood (not verified)

1. A 1/4"-diameter screened crater physically prevents dosage sizes larger than 25-mg. (compare 500-mg. "joint" or 700-mg. $igarette).
2. By preventing drawing small particles down into the channel, the screen permits using sifted, even-particle-size herb which vaporizes readily while holding a lighter an inch or so below the opening and sucking slowly enough to draw heated air in so that the herb is heated to 385-F. for several seconds and does not ignite until thoroughly dried out (i.e. after you have inhaled the THC).
3. A long drawtube attached to the exit end of your one-hitter makes it possible to carry out the above-described lighting process at a distance where you can watch and CONTROL what happens. If the herb darkens, that is a good sign that you are exvaporizing cannabinols. Once some part starts glowing, it sheds heat on adjacent particles helping to vaporize the vitamin out of those, and so on. Just keep sucking slow. The length of the tube gives vapors more time to cool down, preventing heat shock which causes some of the "dopiness" falsely blamed on the cannabis by bigots.
4. Afterwards breathing up to 30 warm wet "W"'s in and out of a one-liter lunchbag helps you absorb more THC, further reducing the number of further tokes you will find necessary. The more THC you get from fewer tokes, the less carbon monoxide exposure, further reducing the chance of "dopiness" bigots can blame on the cannabis.
5. Cerrtain tourist towns in Colorado should now speedily build up a handworking industry devoted to the manufacture of narrow screened chillums, kiserues, midwakhs and sbasa (plural of sebsi) which can be marketed locally.

Fri, 05/28/2010 - 5:35pm Permalink
Chelsea (not verified)

Legalizing marijuana is the smartest thing to do. Its even safer than most things that are already allowed. Tobacco kills 450,000 Americans per year, alcohol 125,000, and marijuana 0. I find it funny that we allow tobacco to be sold to adults over 18, and alcohol to those over 21, but the one thing that has never been proven to cause a death is still illegal. 12 million Americans have been arrested since 1970 from marijuana charges. "Regulating" is one word that shouldn't be used to describe it, I thinking legalizing fits the situation well. Legalizing doesn't mean its a free for all, it will have its limits.

Tue, 06/08/2010 - 12:52pm Permalink

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