California voters continue to strongly support initiative to legalize recretional use of marijuana
An initiative that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in California has held onto support from 58% of voters for the second month in a row, according to a statewide poll released Tuesday.
Proposition 64 is opposed by 37% of likely voters, while the number who said they don’t know how they will vote dropped from 8% last month to 4% in the new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.
Next week’s vote comes six years after a similar initiative was rejected by a slight majority of California’s voters.
“The electorate has gotten younger and more demographically diverse,” said Dan Schnur, director of the poll and of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “The change over the last six years has been more cultural than political. Society feels differently about marijuana legalization now than it did then.”
The initiative enjoys its strongest support, at 74%, among likely voters ages 18 to 29, while only 46% of voters over age 64 back the idea, according to the poll, which was conducted Oct. 22-30..
California is one of five states considering legalization measures on Nov. 8, and is seen as a battleground state for the national movement to relax drug laws.
Proposition 64 would allow the growing, transporting and retail selling of marijuana to individuals who will be allowed to possess up to an ounce of pot.
The measure supported by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Facebook President Sean Parker also allows Californians to grow up to six marijuana plants. Buying marijuana at state-licensed shops will come with a 15% excise tax.
The measure is supported “strongly” by 47% of likely voters and is supported, but “not so strongly” by 11%.
The poll found support a little softer from Latino voters, 43% of whom “strongly support the initiative and 13 “not so strongly.”
The issue most supporters said “best describes” why they favor the measure is finances.
Among respondents who support the initiative, 23% of all voters and 30% of Latinos said they do so because legalizing marijuana “would generate a billion dollars in tax revenue for California which would go towards after school programs and job training initiatives.”
That opportunity was the first reason offered by Barkev Tatevosian, a 28-year-old administrative analyst from Los Angeles who said plans to vote for Proposition 64 but does not use marijuana.
“The revenues are already being seen but they are going into the wrong hands,” Tatevosian said. “People who want to get marijuana are already getting it, they are just getting it from the wrong hands.”
The poll found another 22% support the measure because “The criminal justice system is broken and overrun with non-violent marijuana users, so passing Proposition 64 would allow the criminal justice system to focus on violent criminals instead.”
Eighteen percent said they support the measure to take the marijuana market out of the hands of the drug cartels an “allow the government to safely regulate production.”
Another 13% said pot should be legal because “using it is a personal choice, not something the government should regulate.’
And 10% of supporters say marijuana should be legal “because it is less dangerous than alcohol, which is already legal.”
That argument is partly why Proposition 64 is supported by Heather Leikin, a realtor from Culver City.
Your ballot box guide to California’s propositions »
“I think than marijuana is better than alcohol as far as safety goes, as far as health goes,” said Leikin, 43. “I don’t see people killing each other on marijuana or overdosing on marijuana.”
Among all of those who oppose the measure, the biggest concern, cited by 23% of opponents, is that it is a drug whose use often leads to abusing other narcotics.
That issue is why Raul Duarte, a bus driver from Anaheim, plans to vote against the initiative.
“I think it’s a gateway drug for other, harder drugs and we shouldn’t make it accessible to all the youngsters,” said Duarte, 29.
The poll found that the next biggest concern, held by 22%, is that “Passing Proposition 64 suggests to our kids that it is OK to do drugs.”
Another 21% of opponents say the initiative’s passage “could lead to more impaired driving and highway fatalities.”
That is an issue cited by Barbara Mayers, a retired office manager from Poway, in explaining why she will vote against Proposition 64. She cites the experience of other states that have legalized marijuana two years ago.
“Colorado is dealing with some pretty extreme issues that I don’t think we need to deal with, like impaired driving,” said Mayers, 79.
The poll found that 9% of opponents say their primary concern is that it would put California laws “at odds with federal laws that outlaw marijuana, while 7% said they are concern that it “legalizes a drug whose health consequences have not been sufficiently studied.”
When asked if they have ever used marijuana for recreational purposes, 43% said yes and 54% said they had not.
Of those who used it, 30% said they have done so in the last year, 16 percent said in the last two to five y ears, 8 percent did so in the last six to ten years and 45% said they used it more than a decade ago.
Among those who said they have not used marijuana, only two percent said they are much more likely to use it if Proposition 64 passes, 5 percent said they are somewhat more likely to use it, and 89 said they are no more likely to smoke pot.
Ben only 7%
Those who use it are already able to
Among those that do 72/24
46/48 among those that haven’t
81/16 support higher
The survey of 1,500 registered voters was conducted for the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles Times by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The margin of error for the overall sample is +/- 2.3 percentage points.
ALSO:
Billionaire activists like Sean Parker and George Soros are fueling the campaign to legalize pot
Medical marijuana community split over legalization of pot
After the election, marijuana could be legal for recreational or medical use in 29 states
Follow news on California ballot measures and campaigns
