New Poll Finds 51 Percent of Americans Support Legalization of Marijuana

A poll released Wednesday finds 51 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana, while 44 percent oppose it. Men and younger voters are more likely to support legalization, Reuters reports.

The Quinnipiac University poll was released a month after voters in Colorado and Washington state approved the recreational use of marijuana. The drug remains illegal under federal law.

“With the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes legal in about 20 states, and Washington and Colorado voting this November to legalize the drug for recreational use, American voters seem to have a more favorable opinion about this once-dreaded drug,” Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said in a news release.

Two-thirds of voters under age 29 support legalizing marijuana; a majority of voters over age 65 oppose the idea. “It seems likely, however, that given the better than two-to-one majority among younger voters, legalization is just a matter of time,” Brown said. The poll found 59 percent of men, and 44 percent of women, want marijuana to be legalized.