Marijuana Legalization for Personal Use Reaches New High in Poll
JUSTIN SINK – The Hill
We should remember that it was the states that ended Alcohol Prohibition. It began just as this is beginning, and went up quite quickly to the Federal level. I am not sure that this will happen the same way. Look for this: When it becomes politically dangerous to be anti-Marijuana. It will happen quicker with Representatives, because of their smaller concentrated populations, district by di! strict. I think this will drive the Senate to change as well.
But the opposition may be so bitter, that it is one of the first of the new development trends shifting power to the states. This is going to depend on what the Obama administration does.
A record 48 percent of Americans support legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use, just one week after three states voted to legalize the drug under some conditions – including Colorado and Washington's historic votes to allow the personal use and sale of pot.
Still, half of those surveyed said they opposed ‘legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” according to the poll from ABC News and The Washington Post. Furthermore, nearly four in 10 Americans report being “strongly opposed” to legalization – 11 percentage points higher than those who say they “strongly support” allowing personal use.
But support is up from only 22 percent in 1997, and the 48 percent who say they support legalization is the most in the history of the poll.
Legalization had mixed success at the polls last week. While Colorado approved a constitutional amendment that would allow the sale of marijuana – and directs tax revenues to school construction – by some 10 percent, Oregon rejected a similar measurement by 8 percentage points.
Washington state also legalized possession and use for adults over the age of 21, and Massachusetts approved medical marijuana, but Arkansas rejected a medical marijuana ballot issue 51-49 percent. In Montana, restrictions on the distribution of medical marijuana were upheld by a 57-43 percent margin.
Marijuana possession and sale remain illegal under federal law, so it remains unclear how or if states will go about implementing the recently passed ballot initiatives.
Phi Beta Iota: Crime is good business for politics — it creates opportunities to spend money endlessly doing the wrong things, always getting a 5% kick-back. The citizens that oppose marijuana legalization do so out of inbred ignorance — they have been so programmed by government and media propaganda that keeps the drug trade alive (the primary source of both Wall Street liquidity and anything goes political campaign contribution), they have lost the ability to think for themselves. These are people who would stop for a stop sign in the middle oft he desert on a clear day.
See Also:
Matt Taibbi: GRIFTOPIA – RECAP
