Support for the legalization of marijuana has reached an all-time high of 59 percent among registered voters, according to a new Fox News poll released earlier this week.
That’s up from 51 percent in 2015 and 46 percent in 2013 – the first time the network’s pollsters surveyed the issue. Meanwhile only 32 percent oppose legalizing marijuana, down from 49 percent in 2013.
“This is a massive shift in opinion over a very short period,” Fox pollster Chris Anderson said. “As more states legalize marijuana without the negative consequences opponents have warned about, support will likely continue to increase.”
Fox surveyed 1,002 registered voters nationwide between January 21 and 23 using a mix of landlines and cellphones. According to pollsters, the survey’s margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
Among “Republican” voters nationwide, support for legalization remains at only 46 percent – while overwhelming majorities of Democrats (68 percent) and independents (67 percent) support it.
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[/timed-content-server]Obviously this news site has made no bones of its support for the legalization of marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes. We believe it is first and foremost a liberty issue, but also an economic one.
Having said that, opponents of legalization continue to raise some legitimate public health and safety concerns – and we’ve been doing our best to learn more about these perspectives in an effort to incorporate them into our coverage moving forward.
Stay tuned for much more on that in the weeks and months to come …
Additionally, we have extended an open invitation to supporters and opponents of legalization to make their views known to our readers – an invitation both sides have graciously accepted in the past (and which we hope they will continue to accept in the future).
Bottom line? This issue isn’t quite as open and shut as we used to think it was … and while we’ve seen nothing at this point to make us reverse (or even reconsider) our support for legalization, we would be doing our readers a disservice not to delve more deeply into the dangers and social costs associated with it.
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