Since the country’s first recreational pot stores opened in Colorado in 2014, New Jersey residents have become significantly more receptive to legalizing weed in their own state, according to a new poll.
Fifty-nine percent of residents now support allowing adults to possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use, while 37 percent are opposed, the poll from Monmouth University found. That’s an 11-point swing from Monmouth poll results four years earlier, when support stood at 48 percent and opposition at 47 percent.
But the shift doesn’t mean Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s push to legalize marijuana in New Jersey is a sure thing, as key lawmakers and interest groups continue to resist legislation that would do more than expand the state’s existing medical marijuana program and decriminalize possession of small amounts of the drug.
And New Jersey residents remain deeply concerned about another drug issue: the opioid epidemic. Nearly nine in 10 say addiction to opioids is a “very serious” problem in the U.S., and 59 percent believe the state is not doing enough to address the crisis, the poll found.
The move in public opinion on marijuana, which has occurred across all party affiliations, has apparently been driven by economic considerations and models in other states, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
“The strongest argument for marijuana legalization may be the bandwagon effect,” Murray said. “With many other states doing it, most New Jerseyans seem to view such a move as a potential economic boon with a limited downside.”
The most dramatic jump in support came from Democrats, going from 49 percent in 2014 to 65 percent now. Support grew from 37 percent to 45 percent among Republicans and 51 percent to 60 percent among independents.
Six in 10 New Jerseyans believe legalizing marijuana would help the state’s economy, while only 16 percent say it would hurt the economy, according to the poll. Another 20 percent say it would have no impact.
At the same time, about a third of the state’s residents feel that legalizing marijuana would lead to an increase in other drug crimes, while 26 percent say it would actually lead to a decrease. Thirty-nine percent say legalization would have no impact.
Credit: northjersey.com
The results, which have a margin of error of 3.7 percent, are in line with the findings of a Quinnipiac University poll released last month. That poll, too, found opinion split 59 percent to 37 percent in favor of legalizing marijuana.
Other polls this year from Stockton University and Fairleigh Dickinson University, which framed their questions about marijuana differently than Monmouth and Quinnipiac, found more tepid support for full legalization, at 49 percent and 42 percent, respectively.
The poll from Fairleigh Dickinson was alone in asking specifically about decriminalizing marijuana possession. Twenty-six percent of respondents favored that option.
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As the Monmouth University poll was released Thursday, a panel of four high-ranking officials from state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s office took testimony from marijuana proponents and skeptics in Newark. About 25 people attended the first of the four public workshops the attorney general’s office scheduled on the topic.
Much of the testimony came from supporters of marijuana for medical use, rather than non-medical purposes.
“I acknowledge that cannabis is not a benign substance,” said Jessie Gill, a nurse who said she benefited from marijuana after a spinal injury. “It has risks and needs to be treated accordingly.”
Credit: northjersey.com
