Poll Finds California Not Quite There on Marijuana Legalization

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #737)
Drug War Issues
Medical Marijuana
Personal Marijuana Use
Politics & Advocacy
Public Opinion
Marijuana Legalization

Californians overwhelmingly support medical marijuana, especially for "patients with terminal and debilitating conditions," but when it comes to legalizing it, a new poll finds the state has a ways to go. According to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll, only 46% of respondents favored legalization, with 50% opposed.

[image:1 align:right]On medical marijuana, 80% supported it, with 62% strongly supporting and 18% supporting. Only 17% were opposed, and 3% pronounced themselves undecided.

On marijuana legalization, the poll asked "Do you think marijuana should be legalized for recreational or general use by adults?" One-third (33%) strongly supported legalization, while another 13% supported it. Strong opposition to legalization was at 42%, with soft opposition at 8%, while the remaining 4% either had no opinion or refused to answer.

Looking at the poll's cross tabs provides a more detailed breakdown of where support for legalization is strong and where it isn't. The cross tabs show majority support for legalization among independents (56%) and Democrats (51%), but not Republicans (28%). Among ethnic groups, half of blacks (50%) support legalization, and 49% of whites, but only 37% of Hispanics. Among people with kids, only 47% support legalization, but that's one point higher than people without kids (46%).

Support for legalization correlates with income. Among people making $50,000 a year or more, support was at 54%, while among people making less than that, support was only at 40%.

The only region of the state with majority support for legalization was the San Francisco Bay area, with 55%, followed by Los Angeles County (49%), Sacramento and Northern California (46%), the Central Coast (42%), Southern California outside of LA County (41%), and the Central Valley (34%).

The gender gap evident in other marijuana polls also shows up in this one. While 51% of men favored legalization, only 41% of women did.

With no legalization initiatives making the ballot this year, California activists have at least two years to work on upping the numbers. It looks like they better be prepared to do a lot of talking to Hispanic women with kids and low-paying jobs.

News Brief
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Comments

Anh Hung Can Sa (not verified)

This was a Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California poll. Their October, 2010 poll of California voters found 39% support for Proposition 19, yet less than a month later 46.5% of the electorate voted to end marijuana prohibition.

 
Two years have elapsed since Proposition 19 was defeated, during which time approximately 800,000 Californians have turned 18 while another 500,000 have passed away due to old age. The only way this poll can be correct is if  huge numbers of Prop 19 supporters suddenly changed their minds or if the current cohort of 18-19 year olds were as rabidly anti-marijuana as the over-65 demographic. As neither of these scenarios seems particularly likely, I'm going to put my money on California legalizing mj in 2014.
Thu, 05/31/2012 - 11:54pm Permalink
John Thomas (not verified)

Thank you.  That is an excellent analysis and point.  It's clear the rabidly prohibitionist LA Times has their thumb on the scales.

It's ludicrous to think Californians will regress back to the Neanderthal oppression.  There will be many such twistings and writhings of the marijuana prohibition beast in its death throes.

Fri, 06/08/2012 - 4:40am Permalink
Anh Hung Can Sa (not verified)

This was a Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California poll. Their October, 2010 poll of California voters found 39% support for Proposition 19, yet less than a month later 46.5% of the electorate voted to end marijuana prohibition.

 
Two years have elapsed since Proposition 19 was defeated, during which time approximately 800,000 Californians have turned 18 while another 500,000 have passed away due to old age. The only way this poll can be correct is if  huge numbers of Prop 19 supporters suddenly changed their minds or if the current cohort of 18-19 year olds were as rabidly anti-marijuana as the over-65 demographic. As neither of these scenarios seems particularly likely, I'm going to put my money on California legalizing mj in 2014.
Thu, 05/31/2012 - 11:57pm Permalink
mxwoody (not verified)

"Support for legalization correlates with income. Among people making $50,000 a year or more, support was at 54%, while among people making less than that, support was only at 40%."  
a.  Note that $igarette-smoking (expensive as that is) is more prevalent among low-income, less educated groups-- just like hostility to cannabis as noted in the study.
b.  Hypothesis: lower-income individuals are more impacted by $igarette industry advertising and likely to see cannabis used by peers who are $igarette addicts, who have other behavior problems they assume to be caused by the cannabis.
Jose4, concentrate your boycott especially among "industries" or products which have a vested interest in prohibition such as $igarettes and alcohol (which also advertise most heavily in publications read by low-income individuals).
My guess is women, especially Hispanics, are obedient to the dictum of their mother's generation to a greater extent than men, i.e. this is a "lagging indicator".  Also Hispanics are mostly more aware than Anglos of the murder and mayhem in Mexico and the fact that thugs (because of prohibition) happen to be in charge of cannabis marketing today.
How to speed up acceptance of cannabis use?  Make sure all such use makes a "responsible", "rational" impression on onlookers who see it-- starting with pressuring the media outlets to banish pictures of ominous overstuffed hot-burning "joints" from the top of cannabis-related articles and substitute a picture of a narrow, screened calumet, chillum, kiseru (Japan), midwakh (Middle East), sebsi (Morocco) or other one-hitter utensil, if possible also with a long flexible drawtube ("hookah-hose") attached so that (a) users can see what they are doing when lighting a vapetoke and (b) the vapors have a long distance to travel cooling down before reaching the user's tender trachea.

 


 

Fri, 06/08/2012 - 5:35pm Permalink

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