Overwhelming Majority of U.S. Voters Want the Feds to Respect State Marijuana Laws

The vast majority of U.S. voters support making marijuana legal and think the federal government should respect state marijuana laws, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released Thursday afternoon. The full poll results are available here.

The nationwide survey of 1,323 voters found that five out of seven voters (71 percent) -- including majorities of Republicans, Democrats, independents, and every age group polled -- oppose the government enforcing federal prohibition laws in states that have made marijuana legal for medical or adult use.

The Quinnipiac poll also found that 93 percent of voters support allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes and 59 percent support making it legal for all purposes. The results appear to be in line with national polls released by Gallup and the Pew Research Center in October, which found support for ending marijuana prohibition at 60 percent and 57 percent, respectively.  

“Americans of all ages and political persuasions can agree that the federal government has no business interfering in state marijuana laws," said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project.

"People do not want federal prohibition laws to be enforced in states that have rejected them. There appears to be near universal support for allowing the use of medical marijuana, and the majority in favor of broader reform is growing quickly. Our country might be divided on some issues, but more and more, it is looking like marijuana policy is not one of them," Tvert said.

“President Trump said throughout his campaign that he supported states’ rights to determine their own marijuana policies. We are hopeful that he will maintain that position, which is clearly in line with the majority of Americans. It appears the administration would face strong criticism from both sides of the aisle and most people in between if it attempted to interfere in states’ marijuana laws.”

Tvert's group, Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, is the nation’s largest marijuana policy organization.