September 23, 2014

WASHINGTON- Coming off of a Suffolk University/USA Today poll finding only 46% of Coloradans support legalization now, a new report released today finds that in a survey of over 4,500 adults, only 44% support marijuana legalization. 50% of Americans oppose it, including 24% who strongly oppose such a policy.

“Legalization is not a done deal – far from it,” remarked Kevin A. Sabet, President of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). “People are waking up and realizing that legalization in practice does not represent the magic policy they were promised.”

Polls in Alaska and elsewhere also find diminished support with 49% opposed and only 44% in favor of legalization. Reports from Colorado are finding that revenue projections were grossly overestimated, and the public is experiencing increased health and safety consequences driven by the marijuana industry.

The margin of error for the survey is +/- 1.8 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. The survey was designed and conducted by Public Religion Research Institute (see page 4) and funded by the Ford Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Results of the survey were based on bilingual (Spanish and English) RDD telephone interviews conducted between July 21, 2014 and August 15, 2014 by professional interviewers under the direction of SSRS, a full-service survey research firm. Interviews were conducted among a random sample of 4,507 adults 18 years of age or older living in the United States (2,253 respondents were interviewed on a cell phone).

Data collection is based on stratified, single-stage, random-digit-dialing (RDD)

sample of landline telephone households and randomly generated cell phone

numbers. The sample is designed to represent the total U.S. adult population

covering respondents from all 50 states, including Hawaii and Alaska. The landline and cell phone samples are provided by Marketing Systems.

Story at Washington Post:

Survey: Support for legal weed drops 7 points in the past year