Why is support for marijuana legalization hitting record heights? [View all]

[ScienceIsGood]

A record number of American citizens support marijuana legalization, according to two new national polls, in a continuation of multi-year trend.

As proponents of legalization proliferate, legislatures are beginning to direct the swell of public opinion to the polls, where four states and the District of Columbia have already legalized recreational marijuana. This November, five more states will put the question of legalization before voters.

Sixty percent of those polled by Gallup this month supported legalization, similar to the 57 percent polled earlier this fall by the Pew Research Center. One decade ago, those numbers were just 35 and 32 percent, respectively, highlighting the sudden groundswell of public support for legalization in recent years.

"Young people under 35 have shifted the most over the last 10 years or more. That’s important," Frank Newport, the editor in chief of Gallup.com, told Yahoo News. "That’s where social change usually occurs. Older people tend to be set in their ways, and that seems to be happening here as well."

Support for legalization is highest among Millennials, with 77 percent of people in that age bracket in favor of making cannabis legal, according to Gallup, but it is also growing among other generations. Among those over the age of 55, for example, 45 percent say that pot should be legal.

Much more at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/1021/Why-is-support-for-marijuana-legalization-hitting-record-heights