Just as with Proposition 19 in California last cycle, the final set of polls in both Washington State and Colorado proved to be very useful. In Washington State the polls near perfectly predicted the percent of the vote Initiative 502 would get. While in Colorado the final polls slightly understated Amendment 64 support.

Overall the actual yes vote on marijuana legalization initiatives tended to slightly exceed the level of support found in final polls. Going forward the lesson seems to be that as long as a marijuana legalization initiative is polling at just around 50 percent support before the election, it is likely to pass.

The one thing that made the polling in this election different from 2010 is that the polls remained remarkably stable throughout the campaign. In 2010, Prop 19 was ahead in the polling during the summer but support collapsed in the final month. By comparison support for Initiative 502 and Amendment 64 remained almost unchanged with no drop at the end. SurveyUSA’s first poll on I-502 back in July found 55 percent of voters planning to support it, and every poll they conducted consistently found support between 55%-57%. Similarly, all of PPP polling since August consistently had Amendment 64 winning by roughly eight to nine points.

This past election basically proves that the 2010 Prop 19 last minute drop in the polls was due only to issues specifically related to that initiative/campaign; it wasn’t some natural tendency for voters get cold feet about marijuana legalization initiatives at the last minute.

The lesson for potential future efforts seems to be that as long as the polling roughly a year out from the election shows just over 50 percent support for the general idea of legalizing marijuana, a well written initiative backed by a good campaign stands a solid chance of being approved. There are several states that should likely meet this criterion in 2014 or 2016.

Washington State – Initiative 502
PPP (11/1-3)
Initiative Measure No. 502 would license and regulate marijuana production, distribution, and possession for persons over 21; remove state law criminal and civil penalties for activities that it authorizes; tax marijuana sales; and earmark marijuana-related revenues. If the election was today, would you vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on Initiative 502?
Yes 53%
No 44%
Undecided 3%

All the recent public polling in Washington has found I-502 above the 50 percent mark needed for passage. The SurveyUSA poll from last week found it leading 56 percent to 37 percent and the Washington Poll had it ahead 55.4 percent to 37.6 percent.

During the 2010 election, PPP’s final poll of Proposition 19 in California ended up very accurately predicting how much support that marijuana legalization initiative would get. PPP’s last poll right before the 2010 election found Prop 19 at 44 percent support and on election day it got 46.5 percent of the vote. Assuming PPP’s polling of marijuana initiatives ends up being as accurate this election as it was last cycle, Washington should make history by approving I-502 tomorrow.

Marijuana legalization initiatives are already approved to appear on the ballot in Colorado (Amendment 64) and Washington State (Initiative 502).  These two initiatives have five important advantages this year compared to Prop 19.

1) Time – While two years is a very short period of time separating the ballot measures, the opinions of regular Americans on marijuana legalization are changing rapidly. In October 2009 Gallup found 44% of Americans thought marijuana should be legal, compared to 54% illegal. In 2010 that gap had closed to 46% legal – 50% illegal. By October 2011 Gallup found 50% thought it should be legal, compared to 46% illegal. That was basically an 8 point national swing for legalization in just the first year following Prop 19′s failure.

Pew polling also found a recent increase in support for legalization in one year. In March 2010 pew found 41% thought marijuana should be legal compared to 52% illegal. Exactly one year later Pew found support jumped to 45% legal – 50% illegal.

There has already been a significant growth in popular support for marijuana legalization since just 2010 when Prop 19 failed. If the trend continues, support should likely grow another few point between now and November, when voters in Colorado and Washington State go to the polls.

2) Turnout, Age – Another piece of good news for marijuana legalization is that 2012 is a presidential election year; 2010 was only a congressional election year. Presidential elections almost always experience much higher overall voter turnout, especially among younger voters. In 2008 the last presidential election, people under the age of 30 cast 17.1% of all the votes. In 2010 people under 30 made up only 11.3% of the vote.

This is very important for marijuana legalization, because there is a huge age divide on the issue. Young voters overwhelming support it, while older voters oppose it. According to Gallup 62% of those adults under 30 support legalization while only 31% of those over 65 do. If young voters in 2010 had comprised the same percentage of the electorate as they had in the 2008 presidential election, Prop 19 would have done significantly better, likely failing by only 49% yes to 51% no.

3) Turnout, Partisan – In addition 2010 was a highly unusually wave election for Republicans. There was a relatively high turnout among Republican leaning voters and an unusually low turnout among Democratic leaning voters. This likely hurt Prop 19, since Republicans voters tend to be less supportive of legalization. Gallup found 57% of Democrats think marijuana should be legal while only 35% of Republicans feel that way. Early indications are that in 2012 we will see nothing like the historic Republican wave that happened in 2010, and partisan turnout should be more even. A more traditional partisan balance in turnout would improve a marijuana legalization ballot measure performance this year compared to 2010.

4) Clear Regulatory Structures – While there are important technical differences between the initiatives on the ballot in Washington State and Colorado, they both clearly assign a specific state agency to regulate, control and tax marijuana. On the other hand Prop 19 didn’t directly lay out how state agencies would regulate and tax marijuana. This lack of explicit instruction about a state regulation scheme was widely attacked by opponents to make the claim that Prop 19 was “poorly drafted.”

Indications are that this particular attack did cost Prop 19 some support and contributed to its narrow loss. PPIC polling found that 7% of voters said the main reason they voted no on Prop 19 was because it was “poorly written.” Similarly Greenberg Quinlan Rosner polling found that almost a third of those who voted against Prop 19 in general thought marijuana should be legal or decriminalized but had specific problems with Prop 19. Both I-502 and Amendment 64 were drafted in part to address these concerns. One hopes the design of these two measures will help them win over those on the fence.

5) Strength in Numbers – While hard to quantify, I think the fact the legalization will be on the ballot in at least two states this November will have a psychological impact on voters. A lot of the rhetoric around Prop 19 was about California going it alone. Often it was phrased as ‘would California lead the way’, ‘would California break with the rest of the country,’ or ‘would California live up to its hippie counter cultural image.’ I think concerns about being first and alone on this issue made some voters in California uncomfortable.

I feel that with legalization being simultaneously decided on in Washington and Colorado, the rhetoric this time around will be more about whether the country is moving to embrace marijuana legalization and less about whether a single state is going it alone. I suspect being part of a multi-state debate will make some undecided voters more comfortable than they would be if they were asked to vote to make their state the ‘first’ to take the plunge.

The demographic trends on the issue are so clearly moving in one direction that it is no longer a question of whether states will begin ending their prohibition against marijuana, but simply a matter of when. For these reasons and many others, 2012 just might be the beginning of the end for the war on marijuana in the United States.

Californians are still divided on legalizing marijuana, with 46 percent saying it should be made legal while  51 percent disagree. Findings were similar in September 2010 (47% legal, 49% illegal) and in May 2010 (48% legal, 49% illegal). Likely voters hold similar views. In 2010, voters rejected Proposition 19 (53.5% no), which would have legalized marijuana in the state. Most Democrats (53%) support legalizing marijuana use, while most Republicans (59%) oppose it. Independents are much more likely to support making marijuana use legal (56%) than keeping it illegal (40%). Over half of liberals (59%) and moderates (52%) favor legalization, while 68 percent of conservatives oppose legalization of marijuana.

The San Francisco Bay Area is the only region where residents are more likely to say marijuana should be made legal (55%) than illegal (40%). In other regions, residents of the Central Valley (60%), Los Angeles (57%), and the Other Southern California region (53%) prefer to keep marijuana illegal. Latinos (68%) are most likely to oppose legalization, compared to 53 percent of Asians and 41 percent of whites. A majority (55%) of whites favor legalization. Just over half of men (53% legal, 44% illegal) think marijuana should be legal; a majority of women disagree (39% legal, 58% illegal).

The loss last year of Proposition 19, a marijuana legalization ballot initiative, hasn’t caused a significant decrease, or increase, in the support for marijuana legalization in the state. This is mildly positive news for the reform movement going forward. There is the worry, with any issue put on the ballot, that if it loses, more people will go along with popular opinion.

This poll would indicate that marijuana policy reform advocates don’t need to be too concerned about a popular opinion backlash if their initiative narrowly fails.

Do you think marijuana usage should be legal  or illegal?
Legal ………… 51%
Illegal………… 38%
Not sure ……. 11%

Not surprisingly the break down of support for legalizing the use of marijuana in Colorado is nearly identical to the patterns we have seen nationally. Support for legalizing the usage of marijuana is strongest among very liberal voters (82%), Democrats (65%) and voters under 30 (71%). While the least amount of support comes from very conservative voters (28%), Republicans (31%) and senior citizens (36%).

One very interesting piece of information from the cross tabs is that individuals who voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election overwhelmingly think marijuana should be legal by a margin of 68 percent legal – 21 percent illegal. In Colorado, at least, President Obama’s stance on both recreational and medicinal marijuana use is radically out of line with his base.

Although majority support for marijuana legalization is a good sign for this Colorado campaign, it should be noted that in 2010 the California marijuana legalization measure, Proposition 19, was ahead in early polling but ended up losing narrowly on election day. This Colorado effort  should  be in slightly better shape than Prop 19 was because they are trying to put the issue on the ballot in a Presidential Election year. Presidential elections tend to see much higher turn out among young voters who strongly support legalization.

According to the poll, Republicans were a main cause of Prop 19 failure. Only 27% of the Republicans who voted this year cast their ballot for Prop 19, while 73% voted against the measure. Democrats and independents supported the measure at near identical rates, 56% of Democrats and 55% of independents voted yes. This shows that at least some of Prop 19′s problems came down to bad timing. This 2010 midterm election had unusually high turnout among Republicans.

Most interesting, this poll provides an answer to why many voted against Prop 19:

The top reason given for voting yes on the measure, in an open-ended question, is that it would have allowed for the taxation of marijuana (29%). Yes-voters also say that marijuana use is a personal issue or not a big deal (12%), that it would have freed up the police/courts to do other things (11%), or that it would lead to less crime and drug violence (10%). Among no-voters, the top reasons given for opposition are that drugs should be illegal (33%), and that legalization is not good for the state (12%). Fewer cite child safety (8%), the potential conflict with federal law (7%), or that the initiative was poorly written (7%).

Having 7% vote no because they felt the initiative was poorly written was clearly very damaging to the campaign given that those voter were potentially persuadable and the fact that the measure in the end only lost by seven points.

The poll found that specific problems with the ballot measure itself, as opposed to the general idea marijuana legalization, likely cost Prop 19 important votes. While the measure failed 46.5% to 53.5%, the poll found the voters were evenly split 49%-49% on whether, in general, they think marijuana should be legal.

The data indicates the ultimate loss of Prop 19 was likely due to  three factors: bad timing, failure of campaign messaging, and measure design issues.

With a few changes, Proposition 19 could likely have been drafted in a better manner from a purely politically perspective. I also feel the campaign didn’t do a sufficient job of pushing back against some of the opposition’s rather ridiculous attacks about the initiative’s design. While these issues likely cost the measure several points, the importance of the national trend of the election shouldn’t be ignored. It was just bad luck to have a measure oppose by 74% of Republicans on the ballot in an election with unusually high Republican turnout.

Overall, the poll is decent news for the marijuana reform movement going forward. With a ballot initiative that has a better design from a political perspective, a more nimble campaign prepared to respond quickkly to attacks on technical issues, and an election with a friendly turnout demographic; it is easy to picture how a marijuana legalization initiative in California could pass with a modest majority.

Legalize It, Eh!

Half of Canadians (50%) support the legalization of marijuana, while 44 per cent are opposed. Respondents in Manitoba and Saskatchewan (61%), British Columbia (54%) and Ontario (51%) are all in favour of legalizing marijuana, while the lowest level of support is seen in Alberta (45%).

Nine-in-ten Canadians disagree with legalizing other drugs, such as ecstasy, heroin, crack cocaine, powder cocaine, and methamphetamine or “crystal meth”. This month’s results are consistent with the opinions voiced by Canadians in surveys conducted in May 2008 and April 2010.

The results of this poll are very similar to polling from May 2008 (PDF) and April 2010 (PDF), which both found 53 percent of Canadians in support of marijuana legalization.

Even though a small majority of Canadian adults support legalization, I don’t expect their government to legalize marijuana anytime soon. Still, it does show there is public support for legalization in Canada. There is at least the potential that if several American states successfully legalize marijuana in 2012, reform could spread north of the border.

CONAN: Now, I don’t want to make any assumptions about you. I know you, I don’t say I know you better than a lot of people in the business, but I’m guessing that you were disappointed that Proposition 19 failed.

ROGEN: Yeah, I was – the marijuana proposition. But the good news is, literally anyone on Earth can get a medical marijuana card.

CONAN: This state – that’s the thing that I couldn’t understand. This state, it was such a big question: will they legalize marijuana or not? And it looks like it’s a fairly easy thing to do, to get a medical marijuana card.

ROGEN: Yes, I have a medical marijuana prescription personally. I went in, they said, “what do you need it for?” I said, “I have a very specific ailment – it’s called, I ain’t got no weed on me right now.”

CONAN: “I ain’t go no weed on me.”

ROGEN: That’s how I worded it. And the lady said, “We actually have just the thing for that.”

This exchange really points to some, though of course not nearly all, of why Prop 19 failed. There are legions of California voters who already have easy access to marijuana that, for all intents and purposes, is “legal” in the minds of those consumers.

Of course, there are thousands of people in California and elsewhere that require medical marijuana just to get through their days. It’s why we worked hard in Oregon, South Dakota, and Arizona this year to help patients in those states get safe access to medical marijuana.

But it’s no secret that people like Seth Rogen and Snoop Dogg have medical marijuana cards, and can go to a store to buy marijuana, because they have the “very specific ailment – called, ‘I ain’t got no weed on me right now.’”

There’s much to be discussed about why Prop 19 did not succeed, and many of the reasons go well beyond the current culture of marijuana in California. Just Say Now just conducted a survey of our supporters about the campaign, and will soon prepare a report of our findings. Yet this video struck me as representative of some problem that exists to motivate the general public that already embraces, if not uses, marijuana, to support a legalization initiative when for all intents and purposes, marijuana is basically legal in the state.

UPDATE: On the other side of the medical marijuana issue, the Federal Government now allows the sale of “legal marijuana!” But only if you’re a pharmaceutical company.

There are a lot of competing voices in the marijuana movement, and the only way we can win is if we bring them all together. Whether you’re a patient, a grower, or a non-toking supporter, your views are essential to any attempt to pass marijuana reform at the ballot box.

We put together a quick, easy survey to gather your thoughts on the 2010 midterm election. What did our campaign do well? Where did our efforts fall short? If you have insights into how we can improve, we want to hear them.

THE DEADLINE FOR OUR SURVEY IS TONIGHT. Click here to take Just Say Now’s survey on marijuana and the 2010 election, and help us bring prohibition to an end.

PS: If you take our survey by tonight, you will get a discount code worth 10% off purchases from our online store!

If youth had comprised the same percentage of the electorate on Tuesday as they do in Presidential election years, Prop 19 would have been statistically tied. According to an analysis of turnout data and post-election surveys, the Prop 19 would have been 49 percent yes and 51 percent no.

While I will need to wait for official final turnout numbers from the California Secretary of State to determine what impact Prop 19 had on youth turnout, it is clear from the available data that the initiative didn’t bring out young voters in the levels they normally do for presidential elections (as opposed to midterms).

Greenberg’s finding are in line with my early analysis, which indicated that the demographics of a presidential election electorate would probably cause a swing of two points from opposition to support for legalization. Clearly, the best time to attempt future marijuana legalization ballot measures is in presidential years. Like with any elections, who actually shows up to vote is key.

While grim, one positive note for supporters of legalization is that Demographics are clearly moving in their direction. New, mostly supportive, young adults turn 18 every day, while, to put it bluntly, every day, older, less supportive individuals pass on.

Yes on legalization, but no on Prop 19

The other interesting finding of the poll was that there was a small but significant group of voters–roughly four percent–that supported legalization, in general, but opposed Prop 19:

50 percent of voters believe marijuana should be legal. When asked “Regardless of how you feel about Proposition 19, do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal, or not?,” 50 percent of voters answered yes.

More than 30 percent of “No” voters believe marijuana should be legal. According to the new GQR survey, 31 percent of “no” voters agree: “I believe marijuana should be legalized or penalties for marijuana should be reduced, but I opposed some of the specifics of Proposition 19.”

There are probably a variety of factors that caused those who support legalization to oppose Prop 19. The campaign clearly dropped the ball when it allowed the opposition to influence a large segment of newspaper editorial boards that the initiative was poorly written, a claim that was ridiculous. This probably turned off some voters.

In addition, there are a significant number of marijuana stakeholders in California whose incomes are derived from the gray market for marijuana. Some of them could have opposed the measure because they were concerned the specific design of Prop 19 would directly hurt their marijuana-related businesses. The fact that Prop 19 failed in marijuana-grower-heavy Humboldt Country is strong evidence that this was a small but real factor.

Dealing with the stakeholders ahead of time when crafting the proposition may have slightly increased support. Similarly, it is likely that, for states without as large and vibrant a medical marijuana industry as California (for example Massachusetts), supporters of reform won’t need to worry as much about this dynamic.