Six out of ten New Jerseyans favor the legalization of marijuana, according to a Monmouth University poll released today.

By a 59%-37% margin, New Jersey adults support the legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use – that’s up from 48%-47% when Quinnipiac asked the same question in 2014.

And most New Jersey residents – 60% — say legalizing weed will help the state’s economy.

“The strongest argument for marijuana legalization may be the bandwagon effect. With many other states doing it, most New Jerseyans seem to view such a move as a potential economic boon with a limited downside,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The poll results show that just 32% of New Jerseyans think legalizing marijuana would lead to other drug crimes; 26% says it will. And 39% say it won’t affect other drug crimes at all.

“Even though increasing drug crime is not a major concern in the marijuana legalization debate, the public sees other serious issues with drug use, especially opioids,” said Murray.

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from April 6 to 10, 2018 with 703 New Jersey adults. The results in this release have a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percent for the full sample. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.