Louisiana
Six In Ten Louisiana Voters Support Marijuana Legalization, New Poll Finds
Almost six in ten Louisiana voters help legalizing marijuana, in accordance with a brand new ballot from the College of New Orleans (UNO).
The survey, launched on Tuesday, discovered that 58 % of registered voters within the state are in favor of ending prohibition, with 30 % opposed and 12 % saying they’re uncertain. It’s one of many newest examples of how the reform proposal has gained traction among the many public even in historically conservative states the place legislatures have declined to behave.
Louisiana has taken some modest steps to loosen its hashish insurance policies in recent times, and that’s coincided with what UNO calls a “dramatic change” in public opinion towards legalization. Most voters within the state opposed the coverage change till 2021, the ballot exhibits.
By way of College of New Orleans.
Now there’s a transparent pro-legalization majority—although the survey did determine widespread demographic developments on the difficulty, with youthful folks and Democrats considerably extra prone to help ending hashish criminalization.
Democratic voters within the state again legalization 56-32 %, for instance, whereas Republicans are extra evenly divided at 42-40 %. Individuals who don’t determine with both main occasion favor legalization on the highest degree, 79-15 %.
By way of College of New Orleans.
With respect to age, 83 % of these 18-34 mentioned they again legalization, in comparison with simply 30 % for these 65 and older.
By way of College of New Orleans.
One of many extra attention-grabbing findings from the ballot is that there’s majority help for legalization in every of Louisiana’s six congressional districts, starting from 50 to 64 %.
The survey concerned interviews with 325 registered voters in Louisiana from March 28-April 1. The margin of error is +/-5.4 proportion factors.
Respondents weren’t requested in regards to the specifics of what sort of authorized hashish system they’d be inclined to help. Reasonably, pollsters requested merely: “Do you prefer of oppose the legalization of the leisure use of marijuana in Louisiana?”
Whereas legalization has but to be enacted within the Pelican State, Gov. John Bell Edwards (D) did signal a invoice final yr to decriminalize possession of as much as 14 grams of hashish by making it punishable by a $100 positive with out jail time. That coverage went into impact final August.
This session, a invoice to revise the regulation to make it so folks beneath 18 may face incarceration over low-level possession has superior, but it surely’s but to be enacted.
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Edwards additionally signed a invoice final yr to permit sufferers within the state’s medical hashish program legally to smoke whole-plant marijuana flower.
The governor additionally beforehand mentioned that he does suppose that Louisiana will inevitably legalize hashish for grownup use sooner or later, however he doesn’t imagine it’ll occur earlier than his time period expires in 2024.
An effort within the legislature to move a invoice to legalize leisure hashish stalled within the Home final session after the chamber didn’t move a complementary measure on taxing adult-use marijuana.
Final yr, Edwards additionally mentioned that he had “nice curiosity” within the legalization proposal, and he pledged to take a critical have a look at its varied provisions.
In 2020, the Louisiana legislature considerably expanded the state’s medical marijuana program by passing a invoice that enables physicians to advocate hashish to sufferers for any debilitating situation that they deem match as a substitute of from the restricted checklist of maladies that’s used beneath present regulation. The governor signed that into regulation.
A separate ballot launched final yr equally demonstrated robust voter help for marijuana legalization, even in conservative stronghold districts.
Two different earlier polls—together with one personally commissioned by a prime Republican lawmaker—have discovered {that a} majority of voters are in favor of legalizing hashish for grownup use.
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