The American voters are actually more unified over marijuana than any other policy, including: gun control, immigration and taxes. You won’t believe what percentage of Americans now support legal medical marijuana, according to a new poll.
Roughly 90% of Americans (81% of Republicans and 94% of Democrats) support the legal use of medical marijuana, according to a Quinnipiac University poll of 1,500 voters released on Monday. For purposes of comparison, 55% of Americans think laws governing the sale of firearms should be more strict, 34% believe immigration to the U.S. should be decreased and 57% say their taxes are too high(based on recent Gallup polls).
Here are 4 other interesting facts about marijuana, if you are interested.
But It’s Rarely Brought Up
Despite these strong numbers, medical marijuana legalization rarely gets brought up. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has continued to hold the position that legalizing states work well as “laboratories” (like the Colorado Experiment), but still says that further research is necessary for widespread legalization. Donald Trump has yet to really solidify his stance on legalization, but in a February interview with Bill O’Reilly, he did say he was in favor of medical marijuana. In regards to widespread or federal legalization, he remarked “…in some ways it’s good and in other ways, it’s bad.”
Will It Get Brought Up?
If Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson is allowed to debate in the general election (he was polling at 10% recently, and needs 15% to be allowed in the debates), you can be sure that Clinton and Trump will be forced to talk marijuana. Johnson is also the former chief executive of the marijuana company, Cannabis Sativa Inc.; so it’s obvious that he would bring up the need to legalize marijuana in the US.
Furthermore, the topic will probably be hot come election time. A number of states including: Florida, Maine and Nevada will be deciding on the legalization of medical or recreational marijuana through ballot initiatives in November.
But, for youngish voters that don’t strongly support any of the candidates and that might not otherwise be inclined to come out and vote, might be tempted based on marijuana policy. Support for medical marijuana legalization could be a useful strategy for either candidate should the race become close.
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