Reason Poll: Only Six Percent of Americans Think Marijuana Possession Should Be Punished With Jail Time

That’s right: only six percent of Americans think minor marijuana possession should be punishable by jail time. Further, a strong plurality of Americans think the use or possession of small amounts of marijuana should not be punishable… at all. These astonishing results, unimaginable just a few years ago, are from a new Reason-Rupe poll conducted May 9-13. They show how rapidly support for ending the despotic War on Marijuana is growing. (The Reason-Rupe polls are a project of the Reason Foundation and funded by the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation.) The nationwide telephone poll of 1,003 people asked: “Which approach do you think government and law enforcement should take toward someone found smoking marijuana or in possession of a small amount of marijuana?” Only six percent of respondents said possession should be punishable with jail. Twenty percent said it should result in mandatory substance abuse counseling. Thirty-two percent said users should incur a fine, not jail. Fully 35 percent of respondents said people caught with small amounts of marijuana should not be punished at all. As Reason magazine notes, “The Reason-Rupe poll is one of the few instances — possibly the first — in which the usual polling dichotomies of incarceration versus treatment and criminal penalty versus civil penalty have been expanded to include no penalty whatsoever. “The results suggest that Americans are comfortable with the idea of decriminalization — which reduces the penalty for minor marijuana possession to a civil fine — and more sympathetic than ever to the idea of fully legalizing possession.” In addition, the poll found a majority of Americans support the right of states to legalize marijuana. Specifically, 52 percent would support legislation to “prevent the federal government from prosecuting people who grow, possess, or sell marijuana in the states that have legalized it.”