Everybody Favors Marijuana Legalization Except Elderly Republicans

How many Democrats are running for Congress advocating the end of prohibition?

This week Gallup released a national poll reporting that, for the first time ever, a majority (not just the usual plurality) of Americans favos legalizing marijuana. Democrats and Independents favor it by wide margins. Republicans are opposed, which seems to indicate that libertarianism is still not part of the Republican mainstream. Only 35% of Republicans favor legalization. Over 60% of normal Americans favor it-- with a huge growth in pro-pot independents, up 12 points over the last year! 58% of Americans overall, want to see marijuana legalized. But will lawmakers list?

Public support for legalization more than doubled in the 1970s, growing to 28%. It then plateaued during the 1980s and 1990s before inching steadily higher since 2000, reaching 50% in 2011.

A sizable percentage of Americans (38%) this year admitted to having tried the drug, which may be a contributing factor to greater acceptance.

Success at the ballot box in the past year in Colorado and Washington may have increased Americans' tolerance for marijuana legalization. Support for legalization has jumped 10 percentage points since last November and the legal momentum shows no sign of abating. Last week, California's second-highest elected official, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, said that pot should be legal in the Golden State, and advocates of legalization are poised to introduce a statewide referendum in 2014 to legalize the drug.

The Obama administration has also been flexible on the matter. Despite maintaining the government's firm opposition to legalizing marijuana under federal law, in late August Deputy Attorney General James Cole announced the Justice Department would not challenge the legality of Colorado's and Washington's successful referendums, provided that those states maintain strict rules regarding the drug's sale and distribution.

The movement to legalize marijuana mirrors the relatively recent success of the movement to legalize gay marriage, which voters have also approved now in 14 states. Public support for gay marriage, which Americans also overwhelmingly opposed in the past, has increased dramatically, reaching majority support in the last two years.

…Americans 65 and older are the only age group that still opposes legalizing marijuana. Still, support among this group has jumped 14 percentage points since 2011.

In contrast, 67% of Americans aged 18 to 29 back legalization. Clear majorities of Americans aged 30 to 64 also favor legalization.

It has been a long path toward majority acceptance of marijuana over the past 44 years, but Americans' support for legalization accelerated as the new millennium began. This acceptance of a substance that most people might have considered forbidden in the late 1960s and 1970s may be attributed to changing social mores and growing social acceptance. The increasing prevalence of medical marijuana as a socially acceptable way to alleviate symptoms of diseases such as arthritis, and as a way to mitigate side effects of chemotherapy, may have also contributed to Americans' growing support.

Whatever the reasons for Americans' greater acceptance of marijuana, it is likely that this momentum will spur further legalization efforts across the United States. Advocates of legalizing marijuana say taxing and regulating the drug could be financially beneficial to states and municipalities nationwide. But detractors such as law enforcement and substance abuse professionals have cited health risks including an increased heart rate, and respiratory and memory problems.

With Americans' support for legalization quadrupling since 1969, and localities on the East Coast such as Portland, Maine, considering a symbolic referendum to legalize marijuana, it is clear that interest in this drug and these issues will remain elevated in the foreseeable future.

One political leader who has worked hard to legalize marijuana in his home state of Pennsylvania is Senator Daylin Leach. Daylin, a candidate for Congress in Northeast Philadelphia/Montgomery County, has been endorsed by Blue America. He sees the end of prohibition as a winnable battle that he plans to take with him to Congress. This morning he told us that "We live in a time when politicians on the right talk a lot about 'listening to the American people' when they try to take health care away from folks. Well the new Gallup poll shows that those same American people support ending the cruel and irrational prohibition on marijuana by almost 20 points. Maybe we should listen to the American people on this.

  "In Pennsylvania, I have tried to be a champion of those 25,000 people in my state who each year are arrested and treated as criminals for smoking a plant that is far healthier, less dangerous and less addictive than a glass of wine. One of the things I tell the people I'm convincing to support me for Congress is that it is time to stop arresting our children, forcing them to buy a dangerous black-market product and creating a violent black market which brings violence to our street. The time to legalize marijuana is now."

If you agree, you can help Daylin win his tough congressional race here. He's running against a pack of conservative Democrats who may or may not go along with the tide eventually but will never lead on this or any other cutting edge issues. By the way, another candidate who wants to go to Washington to work for ending prohibition is Shenna Bellows, until today the Executive Director of the Maine ACLU. Today she launched a campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Tea Party-enabler Susan Collins. Shenna told me that she "supports marijuana legalization as a civil rights issue" and that "the war on drugs has failed, and communities of color have born the brunt of these policies. It is unconscionable that the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. We are wasting taxpayer money at a terrible cost to our communities and human rights. Legalization is important from a fiscal and a moral perspective."