More than two in three Americans (68%) support legalizing marijuana, maintaining the record-high level reached last year.
Line graph. Americans' support for legalizing marijuana -- trend from 1969 to 2021. Currently, 68% of Americans support legalizing marijuana, unchanged from 2020.
Gallup has documented increasing support for legalizing marijuana over more than five decades, with particularly sharp increases occurring in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2013, a majority of Americans, for the first time, supported legalization.
As was the case in 2020, solid majorities of U.S. adults in all major subgroups by gender, age, income and education support legalizing marijuana.
Substantive differences are seen, however, by political party and religion. While most Democrats (83%) and political independents (71%) support legalization, Republicans are nearly evenly split on the question (50% in favor; 49% opposed). Weekly and semiregular attendees of religious services are split on the issue as well, while those who attend infrequently or never are broadly supportive of legalizing marijuana.
| Yes, legal | No, not legal | |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| Party identification | ||
| Republicans | 50 | 49 |
| Independents | 71 | 28 |
| Democrats | 83 | 16 |
| Religious service attendance | ||
| Weekly | 52 | 48 |
| Nearly weekly/Monthly | 52 | 48 |
| Less often | 78 | 22 |
| Oct. 1-19, 2021 | ||
| GALLUP | ||