Politics
Majority Of Americans Still Back Marijuana Legalization—Despite Big Drop In Republican Support Under Trump, Gallup Poll Shows
A majority of Americans remain in favor of legalizing marijuana, according to a new poll from Gallup. But support has seen a slight dip since last year—a trend that’s been “driven by Republicans” who are turning against the reform, the organization found.
Overall, 64 percent of Americans now back ending cannabis prohibition. That’s 4 percentage points lower than Gallup’s 2024 results.
Over the past year, Republican support for legalization fell 13 percentage points—down to 40 percent—which is “the lowest level of support for legalization among this group in a decade,” Gallup said on Wednesday.
An overwhelmingly majority of Democrats (85 percent) and independents (66 percent) continue to favor legalization “at similar rates to what Gallup has recorded in recent years,” the firm’s analysis said. What accounts for the abrupt shift among GOP respondents is unclear, but other questions in the broader survey may provide some clues.
Specifically, as the Trump administration has pushed an aggressive anti-drug campaign—which has involved extrajudicial killings of foreign nationals allegedly transporting controlled substances via boats—there’s been a major change in public perceptions of the country’s success in addressing the illicit drug crisis.
Via Gallup.
“The decline in support for legal marijuana is driven by Republicans, whose support has fallen 13 points over the past year.”
As Gallup noted, “this mainly reflects improved Republican perceptions under Trump and his aggressive actions to limit the entry of drugs into the U.S.”
“The White House has used the issue as justification for actions in various international dealings since Trump’s inauguration—from tariffs to military strikes to foreign aid—and this seems to be resonating with the president’s base, even though the impact of these actions on drug imports, sales and addiction in the U.S. is unclear so far,” the polling organization said.
“While Republicans are heartened by this perceived progress, many in the party have backed away from supporting legalizing marijuana,” the survey said. “After climbing in the 2010s, Republican support for legalization had stalled at around 50 percent before retreating sharply this year—another policy area in which there has been a reversal of Republicans’ recent movement toward more progressive attitudes.”
How closely linked these issues are is uncertain, especially given the fact that President Donald Trump endorsed marijuana rescheduling, industry banking access and a Florida adult-use legalization initiative on the campaign trial. But since taking office, the president has been less clear about his position.
While he reiterated in late August that he intends to make a rescheduling decision imminently and he’s heard “some pretty good things” about medical cannabis, “for other things, I’ve heard some pretty bad things.”
Gallup’s Justin McCarthy told Marijuana Moment that “the pullback in support for legalization of marijuana among Republicans is similar to the decrease in support for same-sex marriage among this group in recent years.”
“Both trends have moved in a similar direction over time—and though Republicans have been the least supportive on legalization on both issues, their support had grown over time before the most recent measurements,” he said. “Gallup’s continued tracking of these trends will give us a clearer picture of where this group is heading on both issues.”
The decline in support for cannabis legalization also comes amid an ongoing debate over intoxicating hemp products that have grabbed headlines in states and at the federal level over the past year, with certain GOP lawmakers pushing for bans on hemp containing THC.
Via Gallup.
The Gallup survey involved interviews with 1,000 American adults from October 1-16, with a +/- 4 percentage point margin of error.
Regardless of public opinion on the policy of legalization, Gallup also released data late last year showing that 15 percent of U.S. adults reported that they smoke cannabis, which is more than the 11 percent of who told the polling firm that they have smoked any cigarettes in the past week.
Rates of marijuana use are nearly the same in states that have legalized versus those that maintain prohibition, which suggests that “criminalization does little to curtail its use,” another Gallup survey found last year.
With the majority of states now having legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, another poll from NBC News and SurveyMonkey signals that cannabis’s normalization has left many people feeling neutral about how the policy impacts society—though more say the reform has been “good” than believe it has been “bad.”
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These are some the latest in a series of polls investigating public opinion on cannabis reform.
For example, recently released polling data from the Pew Research Center found that an overwhelming majority of Americans—nearly nine in 10—support legalizing marijuana in some form.
Another recent survey from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR), which was conducted by the firm Forbes Tate Partners, showed that seven in 10 American voters want to see the end of federal marijuana prohibition—and nearly half say they’d view the Trump administration more favorably if it took action on the issue.
A poll released in June that Marijuana Moment partnered on with the cannabis telehealth platform NuggMD showed that a majority of marijuana consumers disapprove of the Trump administration’s actions on cannabis policy to date, but there’s also a significant willingness among users to shift their position if the federal government opts to reschedule or legalize marijuana.
Earlier this year, meanwhile, a firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee & Associates—also polled Americans on a series of broader marijuana policy issues. Notably, it found that a majority of Republicans back cannabis rescheduling—and, notably, they’re even more supportive of allowing states to legalize marijuana without federal interference compared to the average voter.
Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
