Why Do GOP Lawmakers Still Oppose Legalizing Weed?

[AZProgressive]

Today is 4/20, the holiday for stoners and weed enthusiasts around the world. Legalizing marijuana is no longer a fringe issue championed mainly by those partaking in the day’s festivities either. Over the past two decades, we’ve seen a remarkable rise in support for legalization. Polls over the past year from Civiqs, Quinnipiac and Gallup show that roughly 7 in 10 American adults think the use of cannabis should be legal, double the share who thought so 20 years ago.

In fact, a majority of registered voters in all 50 states now favor making cannabis legal, according to state-level polling data from Civiqs. Support ranges from a low of 52 percent in North Dakota to a high of 81 percent in Vermont and Washington.

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GOP lawmakers’ ongoing opposition to legalization is clearly at odds with the viewpoints of many Americans, as most voters now support legalizing marijuana for recreational use. But congressional Republicans are also increasingly out of step with their own rank-and-file members, as it’s Republicans disproportionately driving the most recent uptick in support for legalizing marijuana, according to polling from Civiqs.

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Regardless of the reasons, though, Democrats would be wise to make congressional Republicans’ opposition to marijuana legalization an issue in the upcoming midterm elections. As I noted two years ago, not only is legalization popular across the political spectrum, but political science research shows that it’s also one of the more important issues to Democrats, Republicans and independents. Every 4/20, in fact, it becomes more and more apparent that marijuana legalization is a winning political issue.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-do-gop-lawmakers-still-oppose-legalizing-weed/?ex_cid=story-twitter&cid=social_twitter_abcnp