Elsevier

Drug and Alcohol Dependence

Volume 175, 1 June 2017, Pages 205-209
Drug and Alcohol Dependence

Full length article
Support for marijuana legalization in the US state of Washington has continued to increase through 2016

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.02.015Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Support for marijuana legalization increased in Washington State to 78% in 2016.

  • Support increased within all subgroups defined by sex, age, and marijuana use.

  • Support for home-growing, which remains illegal in Washington, has not changed.

Abstract

Background

Support for the legalization of recreational marijuana continues to increase across the United States and globally. In 2016, recreational marijuana was legalized in the most populous US state of California, as well as three other states. The primary aim of this study was to examine trends in support for recreational marijuana legalization in Washington, a state which has had legal recreational marijuana for almost four years, using data collected over the four years post-legalization. A secondary aim was to examine trends in support for the cultivation of marijuana for personal use.

Methods

Data come from geographically representative general population samples of adult (aged 18 and over) Washington residents collected over five timepoints (every six months) between January 2014 and April 2016 (N = 4101). Random Digit Dial was used for recruitment. Statistical analyses involved bivariate comparisons of proportions across timepoints and subgroups (defined by age, gender, and marijuana user status), and multivariable logistic regression controlling for timepoint (time) to formally test for trend while controlling for demographic and substance use covariates. All analyses adjusted for probability of selection.

Results

Support for legalization in Washington has significantly increased: support was 64.0% (95% CI: 61.2%–67.8%) at timepoint 1 and 77.9% (95% CI: 73.2%–81.9%) at timepoint 5. With each six months’ passing, support increased 19% on average. We found no statistically significant change in support for home-growing.

Conclusions

Support for marijuana legalization has continued to significantly increase in a state that has experienced the policy change for almost four years.

Introduction

The legalization of recreational marijuana sales and use has become a highly debated policy topic in recent years, especially in the US, although scientific research on the effects of these policies is very limited (Kim et al., 2016, Mason et al., 2016). Still, support for legalization of recreational marijuana continues to increase across the United States and globally (Cruz et al., 2016, Galston and Dionne, 2013). In 2016, recreational marijuana was legalized in the most populous US state of California, as well as Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada. More states and other countries such as Canada are expected to consider recreational legalization in 2017 and beyond making the experiences of US states with existing regulatory systems highly relevant.

While US states have experienced “bottom-up” approaches to legalization, with marijuana legislation generally initiated and voted on by the public, Uruguay undertook a “top-down” approach in which the government legalized marijuana production and distribution in 2012 despite widespread public opposition (Cruz et al., 2016). The Latin American Public Opinion Project found that in 2014, 51.5% of those interviewed in the US supported legalization, while only 34% of those interviewed in Uruguay favored legalization; this underscores the fact that changing a policy does not necessarily change the majority opinion (Cruz et al., 2016).

Support for marijuana legalization has increased nationally as well as in Washington state. A 2016 Gallup poll found that 60% of Americans favor legalization, an all-time high in the 47 years Gallup has polled on this issue (Swift, 2016). Interestingly, national support for legalization went from 43% in 2012 to 55% in 2014 (ORC International, 2014), which is similar to the magnitude of the increase in support in Washington during that same time period (Subbaraman and Kerr, 2016). Furthermore, among the same 2014 CNN survey respondents, 81% said alcohol should be legal; 73% said alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana; 16% thinking drinking alcohol is morally wrong; and 35% said smoking marijuana is morally wrong. Thus, there appear to be complicated and perhaps contradictory relationships between perceptions of risk and morality when compared with opinions on public policy regarding substance use.

The only analogous substance policy shift to marijuana legalization is the end of prohibition of alcohol, which was in effect in America from 1920 to 1933. Six years after Prohibition, a 1939 Gallup poll showed that 30% of respondents favored making the country “dry again ”(Gallup Organization, 1939). In 1984, only 17% of Gallup poll respondents were in favor of a law prohibiting alcohol sales (Gallup Organization, 1984); this number grew to 30% in 1988 according to a poll by ABC news (ABC News, 1988). On the other hand, in 1988, only 9% thought drugs should be legal (ABC News, 1988); this number grew to 30% in 1990 according to an Los Angeles Times poll, and then went back down to 15% in 1994 according to CBS news (CBS News, 1994). Importantly, these polls were carried out by different institutions and might not be directly comparable. Still, the support for the legalization of other substance use is relevant for context.

For example, in a 2014 poll conducted by YouGov/The Huffington Post (Moore, 2014) regarding the legalization of methamphetamine, MDMA, LSD, peyote, ayahuasca, and ibogaine, support for legalization ranged from 8% (LSD) to 12% (ibogaine). Similarly, support for other drugs (specifically psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, MDMA, ibogaine, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine) ranged from 12% (ibogaine) to 22% (psilocybin mushrooms) in a poll conducted by the marketing firm (Lopez, 2016). These polls indicate that while Americans lean towards favoring marijuana legalization, they do not want to legalize all drug use.

In the US, four states have retail systems for marijuana regulation that are legal at the state level. The experiences and opinions of residents of these states are highly relevant to the issue of legalization. An important question for places considering these policies is whether support grows over time or declines as residents experience any positive or negative impacts individually or societally. The state of Washington legalized marijuana through voter initiative in November of 2012, with retail stores first opening in July of 2014. Washington took a relatively cautious approach to regulation of legal sales compared to other legal marijuana states, for example by banning vertical integration in order to avoid monopolization of the marijuana market, limiting the number of retail stores and requiring explicit approval of any processed marijuana products. Only one study has examined support for legalization in Washington through 2014 (Subbaraman and Kerr, 2016), which found continued support in the two years post-legalization with nearly 20% of those who voted against the initiative now supporting it. However, given the limited experience with the new regulatory system and retail marijuana sales in 2014, there is a need for information on support for legalization in 2015 and 2016, by which time residents had over a year of experience with retail stores and three full years of legal recreational marijuana. This paper updates previous results regarding support for legalization by including data collected through April of 2016. This paper also extends previous findings by examining support for home cultivation, which currently remains a felony in Washington though not in other legal marijuana states, and by investigating potential subgroup differences in support, as other studies have shown that demographic factors like age and sex, as well as marijuana use, are related to opinions about marijuana (Cruz et al., 2016, Subbaraman and Kerr, 2016).

Section snippets

Data

Data come from repeated cross-sectional general population samples of adult (aged 18+) Washington state residents collected over five timepoints (every six months) between January 2014 and April 2016. After combining timepoints, the total sample size was 4101 (1202 from T1; 804 from T2; 823 from T3; 662 from T4; 610 from T5). List-assisted Random Digit Dial proceedures were used to recruit the sample, with >40% from cell phones. The decreasing sample size was by design in relation to funding

Results

In terms of state-representativeness, we found that at each timepoint, the proportion of respondents from Eastern WA was 24%–26%, and the proportion from Western WA was 74%–76%. This is consistent with the 2010 census, in which Western Washington had a population of 5,229,486, 78% of the total state population of 6,724,540 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).

Summary of results

In a large, general population survey from a state which has had legalized recreational marijuana for almost four years, the longest of any US state, we found a significant increase in support for legalization as evidenced in both bivariate and multivariable tests. Marijuana retail stores had been open for more than a year and a half by the 2016 survey, suggesting that the stores have not negatively influenced support for the policy change. With each six months’ passing between January 2014 and

Conflict of interest

No conflict declared by either author.

Role of funding source

This work was funded by grant NIAAA R01 AA021742 from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Contributors

Meenakshi Sabina Subbaraman did the statistical analyses, managed the literature search, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. William Kerr was the PI of the grant, developed the research question, and assisted with interpreting the results and editing the final manuscript. Both authors have approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge their funding source above, as well as all survey respondents.

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