60% of Americans support legal marijuana: survey

As several states in the U.S. are preparing to vote on their respective marijuana legalization measures in this upcoming election, support for legal pot is said to be at its highest in as many as five decades.

A fresh poll conducted by Gallup found that 60 per cent of American voters said sale and use of marijuana should be made legal. The figure of support for legal pot is the highest in the last 47 years.

Marijuana advocates welcomed the poll’s results, saying pot legalization was gaining nationwide approval and the numbers fell right in line with their projections.

Tom Angell, the chairman of Marijuana Majority, said, “It’s clearer than ever that legalization is the future. More politicians — presidential candidates included — would do themselves a big favor to take note of the clear trend and then vocally support legalization.”

Support for legal pot has been on the rise for a long time. In 1969, when Gallup first conducted a poll on the topic, merely 12 per cent respondents supported the drug. In the 1980s and 1990s, support for the drug jumped to roughly 25 per cent.

The year of 2013 marked the first time when more than 50 per cent of people supported legalization of marijuana. It was the same year when Colorado and Washington legalized the drug for recreational use. Last year, 58 per cent of American voters said they thought marijuana should be legal.