Demographics, Gender and The War for Legalization
A new Gallup poll of American’s opinions towards the legalization of marijuana was released earlier this week. The last Gallup poll on the subject was four years ago, and the results of the new poll show a continued narrowing of opinion in the nation. The trends match those obtained in other polls as well, so that the overall trend is consistent with the trends observed in other polls.
Figure 1 shows the trend line obtained from compiling all previous Gallup polls on the subject produced by Gallup.
Figure 1
Figure 2 shows the trend line which was produced earlier this year by Nate Silver at fivethiryeight.com. Silver produced his chart by compiling all available data from all national opinion polls on the subject, not just Gallup polls.
Figure 2
As you can see, the latest Gallup poll is on track with the trend lines previously observed from all other sources. While this is a guarantee of nothing in terms of future opinion, it is highly persuasive evidence that we are very near the tipping point. Sometime in the next three to five years, the majority of Americans are very likely to favour the legalization of marijuana. Yes, really.
That in itself is extremely comforting for activists in the marijuana movement. To understand what has happened and what is likely to happen in the near future, the trend lines and underlying data indicate three “environmental factors” which are in play. These are the factors influencing American opinion on the legalization of marijuana.
The Legislative Environment
The first environmental factor at work is the normalization of marijuana as medicine in the legal/political sphere. The debate over medical marijuana (“MMJ”), the surrounding discussion in the media and the passage of laws permitting MMJ on the state level track the growing trend in favour of legalization. That does not necessarily mean that MMJ is “causing” a shift in opinion in favour of legalization. To a great degree, it may only be a reflecting the underlying favourable opinion towards marijuana use, generally.
Whether MMJ is a cause or merely an effect is highly debatable; however, what is certain is that there is a direct observable correlation between the two.
As you can see above in Figure 1, the groundswell of opinion in favor of legalization begins to take a sharp increase nationally in 1996, with the passage of Prop 215 in California. The trend lines have been narrowing at an ever increasing rate over the past thirteen years. The more states that pass their own MMJ laws, the more pronounced the shift of opinion in favour of legalization of marijuana, generally.
This statistical and consistent trend explains the increasing desperation of prohibitionists in opposing MMJ laws from state to state, the phenomenon of prohibitionists choosing to throw sincere MMJ patients under the bus, as it were. The prohibitionists can see the trend as clearly as we can – and they know full well that the legalization movement is tracking, to a certain degree, the expansion of MMJ laws at the state level. They can feel it in their bones and see it in the graphs. They are going to fight MMJ county by county, state by state. And this past week also saw the prohibitionists lose their greatest ally, the White House, which has announced a new policy of official detente with MMJ states. Should that policy remain in place for the next seven years, it will be too late to reverse given the statistical analysis which follows below.
The Gender Gap
The second environmental factor revealed in the most recent Gallup poll was quite unexpected. Up until 2009, there have been three primary indicators of an individual’s opinion towards legalization of marijuana. Those who self-identify as conservatives are overwhelmingly likely to oppose legalization (the “Political Gap”). This is followed by the “Generation Gap”. The older a person is, the more likely that person is to oppose legalization. The last co-factor is the “Gender Gap”. Females are historically far more likely to oppose legalization than males in the United States. This is not a new societal trend, either. Those with an eye on history will recall that it was women who were most in favour of the prohibition of alcohol. Women’s Temperance Leagues were on the front lines of Alcohol Prohibition throughout the nineteenth century as agitators and into the twentieth century. By the late 20s and early 30s, when women stopped favouring the prohibition of alcohol in vastly disproportionate numbers, the Prohibition era came to an end.
This Gender Gap concerning prohibition of marijuana has been attributed to a similar Gender Gap which exists in marijuana use, generally. Throughout the past 40 years for which data is available, females have been significantly less likely than males to admit to have ever tried using marijuana – even once. Until just this week, this factor was believed to explain the greater resistance among women to legalization.
The data underlying this week’s new Gallup Poll throws 40 years of polling data into doubt. I would caution that one poll is weak evidence to predict a new opinion model which sharply breaks from a consistently observable historical trend. Nevertheless, this new data may belie a new paradigm shift towards legalization of marijuana in America. If confirmed in subsequent polls, this data would indicate that, at the least, those who favor legalization are not only those who have personal experience with marijuana on a large demographic basis.
Figure 3 compares the response of those in favour of legalization in America based upon gender from the poll taken in 2005 compared to that taken in 2009. The data indicates that in 2009, for the first time, men are only slightly more likely to favour legalization than women.
Figure 3
Under closer analysis, this data is even more remarkable than might be first thought. Women outnumber men in America, by slightly less than one percent. This demographic difference between the genders emerges by virtue of the fact that women tend to live longer than men do. The extra proportion of living women in America is demographically explained by a significantly larger number of elderly women than elderly men. Moreover, these elderly women are just the sort of people who are more likely, because of their age, to oppose legalization. If the new Gallup poll is an accurate reflection of national opinion at the gender level -- and I must caution again that one poll does not a trend make – then this poll demonstrates that the Gender Gap has completely vanished in the past four years.
Why this is so is uncertain, but this data indicates that to some extent, previously held opinions are now undergoing a significant paradigm shift. The data is now demonstrating a tendency of moving away from simply expressing a favorable opinion on legalization based upon the person’s own previous personal use of marijuana.
In short, even people who have never used marijuana in the past are beginning to favour its legalization in statistically significant numbers. This data is strongly indicative that the legalization movement has now broken through and the movement towards majority opinion has now gathered an inevitable momentum. Marijuana Legalization even at the federal level would appear to be, literally, unstoppable. It is only a matter of time.
While you may have heard this before, the demographic data indicates that the Promised Land is much, much closer than you might think.
The Last Bastion of the Prohibitionists: The Generation Gap
Of all correlating factors concerning attitudes and opinions towards the legalization of marijuana, to date, no single factor is as important as previous use of marijuana during some point in time in that person’s life.
Typically, the time where people first try marijuana is in their youth. In the Western world, marijuana use peaks at age 20-21. In the USA, the person most likely to have tried marijuana is a white male, aged 20, who is attending (and, *ahem*, about to drop out of, college). That fundamental demographic profile of the average marijuana experimenter is consistently observable over the past five decades. As the person ages, marijuana use peaks at age 20-21, and tracks consistently downwards throughout their 20s and into their thirties, where at about age 35 or so, use takes another significant dip downwards and begins to trail off into very small numbers in terms of annual use – let alone monthly or weekly usage. This data is confirmed in the 2007 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Figure 4
Despite the consistently observable tailing off of marijuana use as a person gets older following peak usage at age 21, favourable opinions towards the legalization of marijuana continue throughout that person’s lifetime. While we cannot be sure of all factors in play, we can expect that arguments warning against marijuana premised on fears of user violence, criminal tendencies among users, dire promises of “marijuana addiction”, together with predictions of general “societal doom” are very unlikely to be persuasive among those who have direct personal experience with marijuana. In short Reefer Madness-style arguments do not work on those who have had direct personal experience with marijuana use.
Which brings us back to age. Reefer Madness arguments, summed up by the term “FEAR” tracks very closely with personal exposure to marijuana. And therein lies the single greatest factor which explains the narrowing of political opinion in the United States concerning legalization of marijuana, and, I would argue, why legalization is inevitable.
Figure 5 tells the tale. The dark green line at the top of the graph indicates the total percentage of Americans at any particular age who have tried marijuana at least once in their lifetime. This graph was also compiled by Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com and is premised upon data from 2007, so it is a little out of date and the shift coming on the right hand side of the age graph is now that much closer. I might add that the 2009 Gallup poll indicates a modest increase among current seniors in favour of legalization, as we might expect. In short, the demographic train is rolling down the tracks, as expected.
Figure 5
Correcting for the two year progress in Figure 5 (which was an accurate picture for the year 2007) that small shift indicates that in 2009, the total number of those seniors in America who are in their mid-to-late sixties and who have tried marijuana at least once is 25%.
Look at Figure 6. The number of Americans 65 and older who are in favour of legalization of marijuana in 2009? The recent Gallup poll tells the tale: the number in support in that age category is ... 28%.
Figure 6
While that is not necessarily a direct cause and effect, this is highly persuasive of an extremely strong and direct correlation. The correlation is, in fact, nearly 1.0. – as strong a correlation as is mathematically possible to obtain in a statistical analysis.
As you will also observe above in Figure 5 (again, 2007 numbers), by the time you advance the curve to correct for those who in 2009 are 58 years old in America, 50% of those people have tried marijuana at least once in their lifetime. And that personal exposure isn’t even the peak of the demographics in terms of past marijuana usage. That peak will follow in the next 10-12 years’ time. Those who attended high school in America in the late 1970s and early 1980s have personal experience with marijuana approaching just under 60% -- not the 25% reflected now among seniors.
So what does all this demographics and polling analysis mean? It means that around the year 2012-2013, the percentage of Americans who will favour legalization of marijuana will tip the scale in favour of marijuana legalization as national numbers go above 50% for the first time nationally. As the population ages further, and those opposed to marijuana legalization in the largest numbers die off, seniors who have personal experience with marijuana will also creep to above 50% -- and then even higher.
Based on the current trends and demographics concerning direct experience of personal use, by the year 2022-23, those in favour of the legalization of marijuana will not simply be 50% of the voting population – it will by that time have increased to 60% a supermajority.
What we are seeing in the ballot initiatives in California towards legalization generally, and in other states towards medical marijuana, is strong evidence of a rising and irresistible demographic tide. Assuming there is not some extremely significant event that will alter public opinion, the fight for legalization of marijuana in America has approached the end game. We are about ten to twelve years away from general legalization at the state and federal level. That rising demographic tide floats all boats, cuts across both genders and the generation gap – and all that is left in opposition are general political /social attitudes. The social arguments of the Prohibitionists premised upon FEAR cannot hope to prevail when the large majority of the voters they seek to persuade have direct personal experience that contradicts those very arguments.
In conclusion, the 2009 Gallup poll is an indication that the forces necessary to begin the Invasion of Normandy are now gathering. Those forces will hit the shores and tip over the 50% mark in about four years time or possibly less. From there, it’s a steady march through the Ardennes, across the Rhine and into Germany throughout the Teen decade of the 21st Century.
The shooting War for the Legalization of Marijuana is about to be begin – and it starts in November 2010 in California. Barring some monumental event that changes attitudes in an unpredictable way, the outcome of the War for Legalization is certain to result in victory for the marijuana movement.
A new Gallup poll of American’s opinions towards the legalization of marijuana was released earlier this week. The last Gallup poll on the subject was four years ago, and the results of the new poll show a continued narrowing of opinion in the nation. The trends match those obtained in other polls as well, so that the overall trend is consistent with the trends observed in other polls.
Figure 1 shows the trend line obtained from compiling all previous Gallup polls on the subject produced by Gallup.
Figure 1
Figure 2 shows the trend line which was produced earlier this year by Nate Silver at fivethiryeight.com. Silver produced his chart by compiling all available data from all national opinion polls on the subject, not just Gallup polls.
Figure 2
As you can see, the latest Gallup poll is on track with the trend lines previously observed from all other sources. While this is a guarantee of nothing in terms of future opinion, it is highly persuasive evidence that we are very near the tipping point. Sometime in the next three to five years, the majority of Americans are very likely to favour the legalization of marijuana. Yes, really.
That in itself is extremely comforting for activists in the marijuana movement. To understand what has happened and what is likely to happen in the near future, the trend lines and underlying data indicate three “environmental factors” which are in play. These are the factors influencing American opinion on the legalization of marijuana.
The Legislative Environment
The first environmental factor at work is the normalization of marijuana as medicine in the legal/political sphere. The debate over medical marijuana (“MMJ”), the surrounding discussion in the media and the passage of laws permitting MMJ on the state level track the growing trend in favour of legalization. That does not necessarily mean that MMJ is “causing” a shift in opinion in favour of legalization. To a great degree, it may only be a reflecting the underlying favourable opinion towards marijuana use, generally.
Whether MMJ is a cause or merely an effect is highly debatable; however, what is certain is that there is a direct observable correlation between the two.
As you can see above in Figure 1, the groundswell of opinion in favor of legalization begins to take a sharp increase nationally in 1996, with the passage of Prop 215 in California. The trend lines have been narrowing at an ever increasing rate over the past thirteen years. The more states that pass their own MMJ laws, the more pronounced the shift of opinion in favour of legalization of marijuana, generally.
This statistical and consistent trend explains the increasing desperation of prohibitionists in opposing MMJ laws from state to state, the phenomenon of prohibitionists choosing to throw sincere MMJ patients under the bus, as it were. The prohibitionists can see the trend as clearly as we can – and they know full well that the legalization movement is tracking, to a certain degree, the expansion of MMJ laws at the state level. They can feel it in their bones and see it in the graphs. They are going to fight MMJ county by county, state by state. And this past week also saw the prohibitionists lose their greatest ally, the White House, which has announced a new policy of official detente with MMJ states. Should that policy remain in place for the next seven years, it will be too late to reverse given the statistical analysis which follows below.
The Gender Gap
The second environmental factor revealed in the most recent Gallup poll was quite unexpected. Up until 2009, there have been three primary indicators of an individual’s opinion towards legalization of marijuana. Those who self-identify as conservatives are overwhelmingly likely to oppose legalization (the “Political Gap”). This is followed by the “Generation Gap”. The older a person is, the more likely that person is to oppose legalization. The last co-factor is the “Gender Gap”. Females are historically far more likely to oppose legalization than males in the United States. This is not a new societal trend, either. Those with an eye on history will recall that it was women who were most in favour of the prohibition of alcohol. Women’s Temperance Leagues were on the front lines of Alcohol Prohibition throughout the nineteenth century as agitators and into the twentieth century. By the late 20s and early 30s, when women stopped favouring the prohibition of alcohol in vastly disproportionate numbers, the Prohibition era came to an end.
This Gender Gap concerning prohibition of marijuana has been attributed to a similar Gender Gap which exists in marijuana use, generally. Throughout the past 40 years for which data is available, females have been significantly less likely than males to admit to have ever tried using marijuana – even once. Until just this week, this factor was believed to explain the greater resistance among women to legalization.
The data underlying this week’s new Gallup Poll throws 40 years of polling data into doubt. I would caution that one poll is weak evidence to predict a new opinion model which sharply breaks from a consistently observable historical trend. Nevertheless, this new data may belie a new paradigm shift towards legalization of marijuana in America. If confirmed in subsequent polls, this data would indicate that, at the least, those who favor legalization are not only those who have personal experience with marijuana on a large demographic basis.
Figure 3 compares the response of those in favour of legalization in America based upon gender from the poll taken in 2005 compared to that taken in 2009. The data indicates that in 2009, for the first time, men are only slightly more likely to favour legalization than women.
Figure 3
Under closer analysis, this data is even more remarkable than might be first thought. Women outnumber men in America, by slightly less than one percent. This demographic difference between the genders emerges by virtue of the fact that women tend to live longer than men do. The extra proportion of living women in America is demographically explained by a significantly larger number of elderly women than elderly men. Moreover, these elderly women are just the sort of people who are more likely, because of their age, to oppose legalization. If the new Gallup poll is an accurate reflection of national opinion at the gender level -- and I must caution again that one poll does not a trend make – then this poll demonstrates that the Gender Gap has completely vanished in the past four years.
Why this is so is uncertain, but this data indicates that to some extent, previously held opinions are now undergoing a significant paradigm shift. The data is now demonstrating a tendency of moving away from simply expressing a favorable opinion on legalization based upon the person’s own previous personal use of marijuana.
In short, even people who have never used marijuana in the past are beginning to favour its legalization in statistically significant numbers. This data is strongly indicative that the legalization movement has now broken through and the movement towards majority opinion has now gathered an inevitable momentum. Marijuana Legalization even at the federal level would appear to be, literally, unstoppable. It is only a matter of time.
While you may have heard this before, the demographic data indicates that the Promised Land is much, much closer than you might think.
The Last Bastion of the Prohibitionists: The Generation Gap
Of all correlating factors concerning attitudes and opinions towards the legalization of marijuana, to date, no single factor is as important as previous use of marijuana during some point in time in that person’s life.
Typically, the time where people first try marijuana is in their youth. In the Western world, marijuana use peaks at age 20-21. In the USA, the person most likely to have tried marijuana is a white male, aged 20, who is attending (and, *ahem*, about to drop out of, college). That fundamental demographic profile of the average marijuana experimenter is consistently observable over the past five decades. As the person ages, marijuana use peaks at age 20-21, and tracks consistently downwards throughout their 20s and into their thirties, where at about age 35 or so, use takes another significant dip downwards and begins to trail off into very small numbers in terms of annual use – let alone monthly or weekly usage. This data is confirmed in the 2007 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Figure 4
Despite the consistently observable tailing off of marijuana use as a person gets older following peak usage at age 21, favourable opinions towards the legalization of marijuana continue throughout that person’s lifetime. While we cannot be sure of all factors in play, we can expect that arguments warning against marijuana premised on fears of user violence, criminal tendencies among users, dire promises of “marijuana addiction”, together with predictions of general “societal doom” are very unlikely to be persuasive among those who have direct personal experience with marijuana. In short Reefer Madness-style arguments do not work on those who have had direct personal experience with marijuana use.
Which brings us back to age. Reefer Madness arguments, summed up by the term “FEAR” tracks very closely with personal exposure to marijuana. And therein lies the single greatest factor which explains the narrowing of political opinion in the United States concerning legalization of marijuana, and, I would argue, why legalization is inevitable.
Figure 5 tells the tale. The dark green line at the top of the graph indicates the total percentage of Americans at any particular age who have tried marijuana at least once in their lifetime. This graph was also compiled by Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com and is premised upon data from 2007, so it is a little out of date and the shift coming on the right hand side of the age graph is now that much closer. I might add that the 2009 Gallup poll indicates a modest increase among current seniors in favour of legalization, as we might expect. In short, the demographic train is rolling down the tracks, as expected.
Figure 5
Correcting for the two year progress in Figure 5 (which was an accurate picture for the year 2007) that small shift indicates that in 2009, the total number of those seniors in America who are in their mid-to-late sixties and who have tried marijuana at least once is 25%.
Look at Figure 6. The number of Americans 65 and older who are in favour of legalization of marijuana in 2009? The recent Gallup poll tells the tale: the number in support in that age category is ... 28%.
Figure 6
While that is not necessarily a direct cause and effect, this is highly persuasive of an extremely strong and direct correlation. The correlation is, in fact, nearly 1.0. – as strong a correlation as is mathematically possible to obtain in a statistical analysis.
As you will also observe above in Figure 5 (again, 2007 numbers), by the time you advance the curve to correct for those who in 2009 are 58 years old in America, 50% of those people have tried marijuana at least once in their lifetime. And that personal exposure isn’t even the peak of the demographics in terms of past marijuana usage. That peak will follow in the next 10-12 years’ time. Those who attended high school in America in the late 1970s and early 1980s have personal experience with marijuana approaching just under 60% -- not the 25% reflected now among seniors.
So what does all this demographics and polling analysis mean? It means that around the year 2012-2013, the percentage of Americans who will favour legalization of marijuana will tip the scale in favour of marijuana legalization as national numbers go above 50% for the first time nationally. As the population ages further, and those opposed to marijuana legalization in the largest numbers die off, seniors who have personal experience with marijuana will also creep to above 50% -- and then even higher.
Based on the current trends and demographics concerning direct experience of personal use, by the year 2022-23, those in favour of the legalization of marijuana will not simply be 50% of the voting population – it will by that time have increased to 60% a supermajority.
What we are seeing in the ballot initiatives in California towards legalization generally, and in other states towards medical marijuana, is strong evidence of a rising and irresistible demographic tide. Assuming there is not some extremely significant event that will alter public opinion, the fight for legalization of marijuana in America has approached the end game. We are about ten to twelve years away from general legalization at the state and federal level. That rising demographic tide floats all boats, cuts across both genders and the generation gap – and all that is left in opposition are general political /social attitudes. The social arguments of the Prohibitionists premised upon FEAR cannot hope to prevail when the large majority of the voters they seek to persuade have direct personal experience that contradicts those very arguments.
In conclusion, the 2009 Gallup poll is an indication that the forces necessary to begin the Invasion of Normandy are now gathering. Those forces will hit the shores and tip over the 50% mark in about four years time or possibly less. From there, it’s a steady march through the Ardennes, across the Rhine and into Germany throughout the Teen decade of the 21st Century.
The shooting War for the Legalization of Marijuana is about to be begin – and it starts in November 2010 in California. Barring some monumental event that changes attitudes in an unpredictable way, the outcome of the War for Legalization is certain to result in victory for the marijuana movement.
