![According to poll, Americans in favor of marijuana legalization is at an all time high. [Image Credit: CMElixirs/Pixabay]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/10/28/660x290/b_502x220x82/according-to-poll-americans-in-favor-of-marijuana-legalization-is-at-an-all-time-high-image-credit-cmelixirspixabay_1660955.jpg "According to poll, Americans in favor of marijuana legalization is at an all time high. [Image Credit: CMElixirs/Pixabay]")
A recent Gallup Poll, published this month, revealed that 64 percent of Americans surveyed were in favor of Marijuana Legalization.
This was the highest percentage in favor of legalization since the first proposal was made nearly five decades ago. In 1969, just 12 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization. By the end of the next decade, that number will have doubled.
Continuously on the rise
In 2001, a third of Americans supported marijuana legalization. By that point, the numbers constantly increased. By 2013, at least half of Americans backed this proposal.
Marijuana as a drug is still illegal at a federal level. Although, 29 states, which include Florida, California, New York, Washington, and Colorado, have approved its use. Now 8 states have even fully authorized adult-recreational use. According to Business Insider, one-fifth of Americans now live in a state where smoking weed is legal without a doctor's approval.
The Gallup also reveals that majority of Republicans, who follow conservatism, now promote legalization.
Attempts for medical marijuana research
Sen. Cory Booker announced the Marijuana Justice Act earlier this year. The bill will eliminate cannabis from the US list of controlled substances. This bill will pave the way for marijuana to be legal on a federal level.
However, this bill will still grant freedom to the states to select their own policies.
Booker emphasized, in a statement given to Refinery29 in August, that the country’s drug laws are badly broken and need to be fixed.
According to Booker, America’s drug laws fail to make communities safer.Rather than help the country, Booker says they aid in tearing families apart, raise crime-levels, negatively affect lower-income communities, and waste billions of tax-dollars, yearly.
Members of the GOP tried to push medical marijuana research in September. This opposes the proposition made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has introduced a very vocal and public campaign against the legalization of cannabis. Also this year, the attorney general stopped the Drug Enforcement Agency from nodding two dozen bids of specialists to conduct a study on the effects of marijuana.
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch told The Rolling Stone in September that there’s no transformation. He explained that he understands medical marijuana has benefits other medications don't have. He supports medication for alleviating pain and treating illness and has always been a supporter of any decent medicine.
