Today is 4/20, the unofficial but much celebrated holiday for recreational marijuana use. While in the past, this holiday was an underground celebration of an illegal substance, today it is the feature of many companies and brands as they attempt to capitalize on the growing popularity of the herb and its culture.
In honor of 4/20, CBS conducted a new poll which showed that support for the legalization of marijuana has reached an all-time high. According to the poll, 61 percent of Americans now believe pot should be legal, a five point increase from just last year. Even more impressively, 88 percent approve of medical marijuana.
Other results from the poll:
“Seventy-one percent oppose the federal government’s efforts to stop marijuana sales and its use in states that have legalized it, including opposition from most Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
Sixty-five percent think marijuana is less dangerous than most other drugs. And only 23 percent think legalizing marijuana leads to an increase violent crime.”
That cannabis is growing in popularity is not particularly surprising, especially because each election, more states choose to legalize the plant in either medical or recreational forms.
Increasingly, politicians and society at-large are becoming more open to the idea that the federal government could and should begin to treat cannabis similar to how it currently treats alcohol – by upholding age limits and no longer prohibiting the use across the board.
Of course, all of that common-sense comes to a grinding halt when we arrive at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former Alabama Senator who has made it clear that he intends to use the federal government to crack down on marijuana use.
Sessions needs to take a look at these polling results and realize that the time for punishment over a harmless plant is a few decades too late. The people have spoken, and they want their weed.
