A record number of Americans now say the use of marijuana should be made legal, according to a new Gallup Poll. It was the first time the number of people favoring legalization was higher than those opposed, according to the poll, released Monday.
Fifty percent of Americans -- up from 46 percent last year -- say pot should be legal, while 46 percent say it use should remain illegal, the poll shows.
The latest poll shows more support among younger Americans (62 percent), men (55 percent), liberals (69 percent) and those who live in the the West (55 percent). Forty-four percent of Southerners said they favored legalization. Read what some of them and detractors have to say in AJC columnist Jay Bookman 's blog.
Gallup notes that when it first asked about legalizing marijuana in 1969, 12 percent of Americans favored it, while 84 percent were opposed. Support for legalizing pot remained in the mid-20s from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, and passed 30 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 2009 before reaching the 50 percent level in this year's Oct. 6-9 annual crime survey.
Poll results were based on telephone interviews conducted Oct. 6-9, 2011, with a random sample of 1,005 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
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