◾Republicans are nearly as likely as Democrats to say they have used marijuana: 43 percent of Republicans reported past use, as did 47 percent of Democrats. ◾Opinion is divided into three age clusters. Americans under 30 are the most strongly supportive of legalization: 64 percent in favor, according to the Pew survey, and 34 percent opposed. Views in the oldest age cohort are, very nearly, exactly reversed: among those over 65, 64 percent oppose legalization, while 33 percent favor it. The middle-aged are more closely split, but have moved toward support for legalization. Among those aged 30 to 49, 55 percent support legalization, while 42 percent are opposed. Those 50 to 64 years old split 53-to-44 percent in favor of legalization. ◾While men favor legalization by 57 percent to 40 percent, women are closely split: 48 percent support legalization, 49 percent oppose it. This finding is closely related to another: while 54 percent of men in the Pew survey report having used marijuana, only 42 percent of women do. ◾There is a strong minority in each party that breaks with its side’s dominant view – which does not happen on public issues as often as it used to. Thus do 37 percent of both conservatives and Republicans favor legalization. Thus do 39 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of liberals oppose it. ◾But even among opponents of legalization, there is substantial skepticism about the value of enforcing laws against marijuana, and also significant support for giving states that legalize it leeway to carry out their experiments. ◾What might be seen as the “states’ rights gap” on enforcing marijuana laws exists for Republicans and conservatives, but not for liberals and Democrats. Asked by Pew if the federal government “should or should not enforce federal marijuana laws” in states that “have decided to allow marijuana use,” 57 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of conservatives said the federal government should not enforce its own prohibitions. The gap among Republicans between the proportion supporting legalization and the proportion who nonetheless want the federal government to stand down in the face of state legalization decisions is 20 percentage points; for conservatives, the figure is 15 percentage points. ◾By contrast, there is the proportion of Democrats who oppose legalization (39 percent) is close to the proportion who favor enforcing federal anti-marijuana laws (35 percent). The two numbers are similar for liberals (25 percent opposing legalization, 26 percent in favor of enforcing federal laws). ◾Overall, 60 percent of Americans think the federal government should not enforce federal marijuana laws in states that legalize it.
Posted on: Fri, 31 May 2013 03:55:48 +0000
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