Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy
The latest poll, released Saturday by SurveyUSA for the Denver Post, has Colorado's marijuana legalization initiative at 51%, with 40% opposed and 8% undecided. The initiative, Amendment 64, would legalize the possession of up to an ounce and six plants by adults 21 and over and allow for state-regulated commercial cultivation and sales.
The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is targeting its message toward wary parents. (regulatemarijuana.org)
The poll found stronger support among men (53%) than women (49%), with 12% of women saying they were still undecided compared to 5% of men.
When it came to support by age group, support was highest among the 18-to-34 group (61%), followed by the 50-to-64 group (58%). But support declined below 50% for the 35-to-49 group (44%) and those 65 and older (37%).
The numbers suggest that parents with young children and especially mothers remain a weak spot for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. In its early advertising, the campaign has been targeting that demographic.
While the poll numbers are good, they also suggest this will be a very close contest. In 2010, California's Proposition 19 was polling at 52% three months before the election, but it ended up losing with only 46% of the vote.
A similar measure was on the ballot in Colorado in 2006, but it lost 59% to 41%.
The SurveyUSA/Denver Post poll was conducted between September 9 and 12 and relied on automated calls. It has a margin of error of +/- 4%.
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
Grow up parents.
Oh come on parents.
Prohibition puts your kids in the way of unregulated drugs and then the government comes and takes your kids from you.
Won't Pass
" support was highest among the 18-to-34 group (61%)"
Oh, you mean the voters who will be home playing xbox that day, instead of out voting? Never fails, same happened in Alaska, same happened in California. These kids won't go out and vote, so the initiative simply won't pass. Sad, but true.
In reply to Won't Pass by Uncle Bob (not verified)
Instead of giving up, why not try to motivate them to vote?
maybe a little gentle ridicule would work, along the lines of: 'you use weed [or have friends who use weed] and you can't be bothered to vote to legalize yourself [your friends]?'
In reply to Won't Pass by Uncle Bob (not verified)
Really?
This age group is the back bone of America right now.
This age group is going to college learning to be doctors, lawyers, scientists and engineers. I am not a college graduate and I am 30 years old. The ones that are at home are doing so because their parents did not raise them right. What do you do for a living, complain? I bet so.
1. Enclosed, locked space; 2. under 21
1. The measure will require assurance that "growing takes place in an enclosed, locked space" --- (a) does this not cause disproportionate THC content compared with CBD-- as opposed to outdoor-grown, which is alleged to have a healthier balance? (b) doesn't it impose a burdensome electricity cost for all that lighting-- oh, yes, a bonanza for the Electric Company.
2. Strict prohibitions, unreasonably impossible to enforce anyway, on anyone under 21 having any access to cannabis (stricter-than-thou abstinentism)--- HEY FOLKS LOOK AT IT THIS WAY: every year in the USA some 800,000 more kids get hooked on nicotine $igarettes, with 400,000 deaths, $100-bil. yearly health care consequences down the road, could that be reduced to, say, under 100,000, and the health cost monstrum to under $20-bil., if
(a) moderate conscientiously guided cannabis use were permitted to under-21 users INSTEAD of addictive tobacco, and
(b) harm-reduction cannabis "accessories" such as vaporizer, an e-cigarette with cannabinoid in the cartridges, or a portable screened long-stemmed one-hitter (CHOOMETTE) were everywhere available to use unhinderedly INSTEAD of hot-burning monoxide $igarette papers ("joint") or nicotine-infested cigar skins ("blunt"). The measure needs to contain positive reinforcement/encouragement for harm reduction devices and procedures which will prevent the evil consequences prohibitionists claim would result from cannabis use by young users-- maybe specify that possession and use are permitted if a young user also has on hand an ADRU: approved dosage-restriction utensil (25-mg single toke capacity instead of 500-mg-per-lightup joint).
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