ELECTIONATE DECEMBER 8, 2012
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If marijuana advocates have come down at all since last month's victories in Colorado and Washington, then a couple of recent national polls should give them another lift. New surveys by CBS News and Quinnipiac show 47 to 51 percent of Americans supporting legalization, with between 44 and 47 percent opposed. This is good news for liberals, but not necessarily for President Obama. After all, both the Washington and Colorado laws expressly contradict the Controlled Substances Act, which President Obama is supposed to enforce. The Department of Justice would probably win lawsuits against both states, but not without angering the young pro-pot voters who helped return Obama to the White House.
Young voters might be pro-Obama, but they're even more pro-marijuana. While 60 percent of 18-29 year olds supported the president's reelection, the CBS News and Quinnipiac polls, as well as the Washington and Colorado exit polls, show an impressive 65-70 percent of voters under age 30 supporting marijuana legalization. The rise of the millennial generation—not persuasion of older voters—is primarily responsible for marijuana’s growing strength in national polls, with 65 to 70 percent of seniors remaining opposed to marijuana legalization. With generational change already responsible for the GOP's national struggles, the party could really use a break from cultural questions that pit its elderly base against millennials.
Fortunately for Republicans, they actually have a rare opportunity here to seize the middle ground and appeal to younger voters. While the Republican rank-and-file still oppose outright marijuana legalization, the issue could fit within the party's ostensible state-rights philosophy. GOP voters seem to agree. CBS News found that 65 percent of Republicans support allowing state governments to determine the legality of marijuana, compared to just 29 percent who believed the federal government should decide. Rand Paul has already suggested moderation on marijuana legalization as a helpful step toward coping with generational change.
But Republican advocates of marijuana moderation don't have an easy task. Just because GOP voters might accept the state-rights frame provided by a poll question doesn’t mean that the frame would prevail in a debate. The exit polls in Colorado and Washington, as well as recent Quinnipiac polls, suggest that about 65-70 percent of conservatives, white evangelical Christians, and Republicans are opposed to marijuana legalization. If the Obama administration allowed Colorado and Washington to violate federal law, moderation might become even more difficult as conservative media launch a crusade against a lawless administration.
Marijuana’s ascent as a national issue will force Republicans to choose between breaking with the conservative base or undermining their efforts to rejuvenate support from young voters, who so far have only shown interest in libertarian-leaning Republicans like Ron Paul. If Republicans don’t seize the middle ground on marijuana legalization, Democrats will eventually use the issue to their advantage. Not only will Democratic primary voters demand it, they will have a lot to gain. As more younger, pro-marijuana voters enter the electorate and replace their elders, support for marijuana legalization will continue to increase, absent intervening events that reshape public opinion, like a disastrous ending to the experiments in Colorado and Washington. If marijuana becomes another partisan social issue, like gay marriage or abortion, it will make it even more difficult for Republicans to appeal to millennial voters.
7 comments
Weird, since last I checked, Democrats (and safe Democratic constituency groups!) would be perfectly fine with marijuana. It's only illegal because Republican law and order types scared them into it some decades back. The converse issue would be to tell Democrats to pursue charter schools or soften their opposition to right-to-work legislation. The funny thing is, they've done it anyway and look what's happened.
- chaitless
December 8, 2012 at 10:44am
Please, all it would take is for mj to be removed from the list of dangerous controlled substances. the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, determine which substances are added to or removed from the various schedules and pot is in schedule one, which is quantified as such: Schedule I substances are those that have the following findings: The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. As to high potential for abuse, that sounds pretty subjective to me, but pot does not qualify. Pot also has medical uses so that alone can remove it from schedule 1. And since it has medical usage now it is considered safe enough under medical supervision. Now I don't know the law, if pot is classified as a schedule one by Congress or by the administration. If by the administration just take it off the list and force Congress to put it there. Now I don't know if Obama can make the DEA do so, but why not get the ball rolling? Let states decide their own pot laws. As to this being a Republican states rights issue, give me a break? They are going to get rid of the controlled substances act entirely???
- blackton
December 8, 2012 at 4:08pm
Obama should just declare victory in the War on Drugs and turn the issue over to the medical sector where it belongs. Which he has the power to do without regard to Congress. About 1% of the population is going to fuck themselves up with whatever substance no matter what. Let them. Distorting our legal justice system and foreign policy with a militarized prohibition "solution" that has jailed and alienated a huge sector of our population, damaged our best foreign friends and helped our worst enemies, is objectively insane. If Republican really want to limit Big Government, they should start with the Defense/Security Industrial Complex, which features abominations like the DEA and a plethora of other repressive "security" entities.
- Robert Powell
December 8, 2012 at 5:12pm
I think Robert is correct. However, we still need to address the issue of people who vote drunk and people who vote stoned.
- skahn
December 8, 2012 at 11:13pm
Some Christians in Washington State are considering moving to Texas due to the recent legalization of marijuana and gay marriage in our state--they're convinced they're living in the Devil's den. I guess they figure Beelzebub is a gay pot smoker. I'm sure they'll feel comfortable in Texas among the beer-drinking gun lovers. After all, Jesus would.
- magboy47.
December 9, 2012 at 3:15am
RP, I wish you were right. Daily pot use among high schoolers is around 6%. And I suspect those 6% are suffering a great deal for the daily use. The studies are pretty clear that daily use does impact learning, and over the long term it does impact IQ by some 10 points or so. 10 IQ points is a lot: almost a standard deviation. Does the increased availability and lower price mean that figure will go up? Probably. And those are kids that are likely lost forever. Not because pot is a terrible drug. But because it is a drug that when used daily at such a formative time in a person's life it tends to crush ambition and desire severely. Those peddling the myth that pot heals all are just as terrible as the tobacco companies peddling their myths long ago. Society should reject any influence that saps ambition as severely as pot does. If I had a dollar for every smart room mate I had that quit moving forward due to pot, I'd have $3. One of my room mates papered our college closet area with playboy centerfolds and buds of the month from High Times. He was in engineering school with me, and one of the smartest guys I had known in terms of raw brain power. He now cleans carpets last I heard. Sad.
- seattleeng
December 9, 2012 at 2:52pm
Most everything in seattle's post has me nodding my head 'yes'. Unfortunately, though, something even worse than legal pot, it turns out, is illegal pot. Just like with alcohol, making it illegal created even bigger problems than what we were trying to cure.
- Fishpeddler
December 11, 2012 at 11:52am