As you know, two states (Colorado and Washington) voted to legalize the possession and recreational use of marijuana by adults in the last election. And since polls have shown that a majority of Americans now support the legalization of marijuana, the real question is -- which state will be the next to legalize pot for recreational use?A new poll by Field Research Corporation shows that state could be California. This survey was done between November 14th and December 5th, and 1,002 Californians were polled with a 3.2 point margin of error (with the margin of error among subsets being 4.5 points). That poll found that 55% of Californians now support marijuana legalization, while only 31% oppose it. This is the first time a clear majority has been found to support legalization since the poll started surveying on this issue back in 1969 (when 75% opposed legalizing it).
Thanks to the results of this new study, the California Attorney General has given the "green light" to a marijuana advocacy group to collect signatures to put a legalization initiative on the 2014 California ballot. The group must collect about 500,000 signatures by February 24th to qualify for the ballot.
California has voted on this issue once before -- in 2010. But at that time there was only a plurality in favor of legalization -- and after those groups who make money off of keeping the herb illegal pumped a ton of money into an anti-legalization campaign, the initiative lost 46.5% to 53.5%.
But now that Colorado and Washington have broken the ice, and a larger percentage of Californians favor legalization, it looks like California could become the third state to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults.
