Polls of course are just polls, they are not actual voting results. However, they are a great gauge to see what level of support is out there for a political issue, and until Election Day, they are all we have to go off of. The latest poll out of Washington D.C. shows marijuana legalization winning by a hefty margin. Washington D.C. is voting on marijuana legalization in November along with Oregon and Alaska. Per the Washington Post:
By an almost 2-to-1 margin, likely voters in the city’s Nov. 4 election say they support Initiative 71, a ballot measure that would legalize possession, home cultivation and the sale of paraphernalia to smoke marijuana in the nation’s capital.
The results show an electorate unshaken — even emboldened — nine months after legal marijuana sales began in Colorado and six months after D.C. lawmakers stripped away jail time for possession, making it just a $25 offense.
I’m sure it was unpleasant for the Washington Post to release the results of such a poll, considering earlier this week they posted an article urging people in D.C. to vote no on marijuana legalization this November. Even in the article referenced above, the media outlet took jabs at the initiative. But, it appears that Washington voters know the difference between a failed, harmful policy and propaganda, as evidenced by the results of the Washington Post’s own poll. Tom Angell from the Marijuana Majority had the following to say about the poll:
“At the very moment this Washington Post poll was in the field, the paper’s own editorial board was circulating a ‘Reefer Madness’-style, error-laden screed urging D.C. voters to reject legalization. It looks like that didn’t work. No matter how hard prohibitionists try to spread scare stories about legalization, poll after poll confirms that this is a mainstream issue supported by a growing majority of the public. It seems almost certain that marijuana is about to become legal in Congress’s own backyard. The national debate about this issue is about to heat up even more than it already is.”
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