After 2 Years With Legal Marijuana, Most Coloradans Still Like It
The percentage supporting legalization is, if anything, higher than before it took effect.
After two years of experience with marijuana legalization, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds, Coloradans are at least as likely to support that policy as they were when voters approved it. Amendment 64, Colorado's legalization initiative, passed with support from 55 percent of voters in November 2012. According to the new poll, 58 percent of registered voters think that was a wise decision, while 38 percent disagree, compared to the 45 percent who voted no in 2012. The poll's margin of error is three percentage points.
A majority of Coloradans has consistently supported legalization since the 2012 election. Quinnipiac put support at 58 percent in February 2014 and at 54 percent in August 2013, April 2014, and July 2014. As usual, the most recent poll found that support is stronger among Democrats (74 percent) than among Republicans (36 percent), among men (63 percent) than among women (53 percent), and among 18-to-34-year-olds (63 percent) and 35-to-54-year-olds (53 percent) than among older voters (48 percent).
The same poll also asked Coloradans if they had consumed cannabis since legal recreational sales began in January 2014. One in five (19 percent) said they had, which is similar to the percentage of Coloradans who reported marijuana use during the previous year in the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. More than half of the Quinnipiac respondents (53 percent) said they had tried marijuana at some point in their lives. That percentage is up slightly from the previous Quinnipiac polls, which put it at 51 percent except in April 2014, when it was 49 percent.
