Many older stoners remember low-grade brick weed, traditionally grown at enormous farms in Mexico, as a commonly available product in the U.S.. But Mexican-grown weed sold on the black market started falling out of favor decades ago as it competed with domestically-grown cannabis. NORML reports that border seizures for Mexican-grown pot at the southwest border have hit a record low.

Hydroponics, organic inputs, feminized seeds, and other improved growing methods made low-quality seeded weed grown outdoors in bulk by cartels a thing of the past. The relatively new phenomenon of state-legal adult-use cannabis, which started in 2014 put the final nail in the coffin for the trade of Mexican-grown weed in the U.S.

Seizures of Mexican-grown cannabis peaked in 2009, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized 3.3 million pounds (1.5 million kilos) of cannabis on the southwest border that year, the highest amount ever recorded. Often the low-quality weed, a brownish or dark green color, was seeded and vacuum-pressed into kilo-sized bricks, ready to be smuggled over the border. For many Americans, this type of weed was all they could get before domestically-grown, or legal cannabis came to their state.

Nowadays, border patrol agents are intercepting far less cannabis, which can no longer compete with potent pot available at adult-use cannabis retail shops in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, which all border Mexico. 

Tracing back to 2009, you can see a long, steady plunge that shows the weed-smuggling business at the southern U.S-Mexico border is a shadow of what it used to be.

Plunging Cannabis Seizure Statistics at the Border

Agents are finding only a tiny fraction of the pot they used to intercept at the border. According to data published on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website, federal law enforcement agents intercepted a record low 61,000 pounds (27,669 kilos) of cannabis at the southern border in 2023. The total represents a 29 percent decline from 2022 and a 98 percent decline in seizure activity since 2013, when the agency reported interdicting more than 2.4 million pounds of cannabis.

“When it comes to retail cannabis, the prevailing attitude is ‘Buy American,’” said NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano. “The rise of the regulated state-legal cannabis market has not only supplanted Americans’ demand for Mexican cannabis, but in many places it has also disrupted the unregulated domestic marketplace.”

According to survey data compiled by New Frontier Data and published on May 16, 2023, 52 percent of US consumers residing in legal states said that they primarily sourced their cannabis products from brick-and-mortar establishments. By contrast, only 6 percent of respondents said that they primarily purchased cannabis from “a guy” illegally.

What can also be gleaned from the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data is that meth is on pace to surpass cannabis as the number one drug found at the border. Meth has already surpassed cannabis at the southwest border as agents found 121,000 pounds of the drug, almost twice as much cannabis found at that border in pounds.

Weed Smuggled the Other Way, From U.S. to Mexico

Mexican cartels have, for the most part, shifted to production of other drugs—namely meth. But in some cases, cartels never stopped growing and infiltrated grow operations in the U.S. including farms in Northern California and Oregon. Trinity County Sheriff Tim Saxon told USA Today in 2023, that cartel activity in the area is high, and sometimes involves human trafficking.

If anything, pot is being smuggled in the other direction more often. High Times reported in 2016 that cannabis is now being smuggled the other way—south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

A report from KPBS suggests that people living in Tijuana with visas or dual citizenship have been driving into California, where weed has been legal for medical purposes for nearly two decades, and smuggling small amounts back home. 

Dr. Raul Palacios, clinical director at the Centro de Integración Juveníl drug rehabilitation facility in Tijuana, told KPBS that many of his patients prefer the high quality of medical cannabis they get in California to the cannabis grown in Mexico because it gets them higher. But he says that since these people have grown accustomed to lower THC levels, California-grown cannabis has a capacity to induce hallucinations and cause paranoia.

The falling numbers show that Americans prefer high-quality lab-tested cannabis versus weed that has to be pressed into bricks and smuggled over the border. The harsh smoke, earthy taste, and tell-tale red eyes have been replaced with lab-tested pot regulated in state industries.

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Thinking back just 10 years ago, the previous U.S. cannabis landscape stood in stark contrast to the one we enjoy today. The United States currently has 38 states with legal medical or recreational cannabis, with 74% of Americans living in a legal cannabis state and 79% living in a county with at least one cannabis dispensary. 

With nearly 15,000 dispensaries throughout the nation, retail cannabis stores now outnumber the roughly 13,500 McDonald’s locations in the country.

Given the prevalence of legal cannabis throughout the nation, and as reform becomes a prominent political talking point among state lawmakers and even in the executive branch, it’s perhaps unsurprising that American attitudes surrounding cannabis legalization have become overwhelmingly supportive over the years.

Most Americans Continue to Support Cannabis Legalization

Pew Research Center has consistently monitored this progression, with its most recent report affirming that U.S. citizens are indeed incredibly supportive of legal cannabis. The survey was conducted Jan. 16-21, 2024 among 5,140 adult participants.

Nearly nine in 10 U.S. Americans (88%) said that cannabis should be legal for medical or recreational use, and a majority (57%) said that they believe cannabis should be legal for both medical and recreational purposes. About a third (32%) said that cannabis should only be legal for medical use, while just 11% of respondents said that cannabis should not be legal whatsoever.

The survey also took a closer look at American attitudes surrounding the impacts of legalization, with 52% saying it’s good for local economies (17% said it is bad while 29% said it has no impact). Respondents were also asked about reform’s impact on the criminal justice system, with 42% saying that legalizing recreational cannabis results in more fairness (18% said recreational legalization makes criminal justice less fair and 38% said it has no impact).

Negative Impacts of Cannabis Reform and Party Divisions

American views were more mixed when it came to recreational cannabis legalization and some of the more negative potential implications.

Around the same amount of respondents said that adult-use cannabis legalization increases (29%) or decreases (27%) the use of other drugs (42% said it has no impact), and more Americans viewed recreational cannabis legalization as creating less safety (34%) for communities over more (21%), with the majority (44%) saying that it does not have an impact on community safety.

While cannabis reform has steadily gained more bipartisan support over time, the survey shows that Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents still tend to show more support than their Republican counterparts. Democrats largely believe that recreational cannabis is good for local economies (64%) and makes the criminal justice system more fair (58%), while fewer Republicans said the same (41% and 27%, respectively).

Consequently, Republican respondents tended to cite the negative potential impacts of cannabis reform more than Democrats, with 42% saying it increases the use of other drugs (compared to 17% of Democrats) and 48% saying it makes communities less safe (compared to 21% of Democrats who said the same).

While the long-term impacts of cannabis reform are still being studied, it should be noted that numerous studies have debunked the assertion that cannabis reform encourages the use of other drugs. Similarly, studies have shown cannabis legalization is not associated with an uptick in car crashes, a rise in use among youth or youth perceptions of cannabis.

American Attitudes ‘Largely Unchanged’ in Recent Years

Looking closer at other demographics, Pew echoes myriad other studies and surveys finding that older adults are far less likely than younger adults to support cannabis legalization. Pew reported similar trends when it came to attitudes around the impacts of cannabis legalization, with younger respondents far more likely to report that cannabis is good for local economies and makes the criminal justice system more fair.

The polling is largely consistent with Pew’s previous reports. The 2022 survey also reported that 88% of American adults supported legal medical or recreational cannabis, with 10% stating cannabis use should not be legal at all.

Speaking to the survey results, Paul Armentano, deputy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) advocacy group, said that the increasing support can be linked to a lack of “buyer’s remorse” surrounding cannabis legalization among voters.

“As more states have adopted legalization, public support for this policy has risen dramatically,” Armentano said. “That’s because these policies are largely working as intended and because voters prefer legalization and regulation over the failed policy of cannabis prohibition. Elected officials who refuse to take action to end cannabis criminalization do so at their own political peril.”

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The majority of Americans now live in a state that has legalized adult-use or medical cannabis, a new Pew Research Center analysis indicates. In addition, nearly 80% of U.S. residents also have at least one cannabis dispensary in their county.

“According to our analysis, 74% of Americans live in a state where marijuana is legal for either recreational or medical use,” Caleb Keller, a communications assistant with Pew Research Center told High Times.

“Our analysis finds that around three-quarters of all dispensaries in the country are in states that have legalized the recreational use of marijuana,” the Pew Research Center reports. “Another 23% are in medical marijuana-only states. In fact, two of the top five states with the largest number of dispensaries—Oklahoma and Florida—allow the drug for medical use only.”

In addition, nearly 80% of Americans live in a county with at least one cannabis dispensary. Even for people that live in states and areas that don’t allow cannabis, dispensaries near state borders are also thriving, often next to states with less permissive cannabis laws.

The catalyst for change was the approval of California’s Prop. 215 in 1996, ushering in the era of state cannabis laws. (California is now home to a quarter of dispensaries in the U.S.) That number has since grown to 38 medical cannabis markets and more with limited forms of medical cannabis.

Pew Research released the following key findings:

• 54% of Americans live in a state where the recreational use of marijuana is legal—just a dozen years after Colorado and Washington became the first states to allow cannabis for recreational purposes.
• 74% of Americans live in a state where cannabis is legal for either recreational or medical use. California was the first state to legalize medical cannabis in 1996.
• 79% of Americans live in a county with at least one cannabis dispensary.
• There are nearly 15,000 cannabis dispensaries in the United States. Dispensaries (businesses that sell cannabis products) are common on the West Coast and Northeast, but also in interior states like Michigan, Oklahoma and Colorado.
• California has far more dispensaries than any state: 3,659 at the time of this analysis, more than double the amount in the second-highest ranking state. A quarter of all cannabis dispensaries in the U.S. are in California, and nearly all Californians (99.5%) have a dispensary in their county. Los Angeles County alone has more dispensaries (1,481) than any state other than California itself.
• Oklahoma has the most cannabis dispensaries per capita of any state: 36 dispensaries for every 100,000 residents.

How the Data Was Gathered

Pew based updated cannabis laws on data from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and all information is current as of February 2024. According to NORML, there are now 24 states plus the District of Columbia that have legalized adult-use cannabis as of February 2024, and another 14 states allow medical cannabis.

A remaining 12 states have legalized limited access to cannabis products that contain little to no THC, i.e. things like CBD oil. Finally, 27 states across all levels of legalization have decriminalized adult-use cannabis.

For population estimates at the state, county and census tract levels, Pew Research relied on the U.S. Census Bureau—specifically, Table B01003 of the American Community Survey’s 5-year estimates for 2019. 

County-level estimates include counties and county equivalents (such as Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska). For median household incomes at the state and census tract levels, we used Table S1901 of the same publication.

For information about cannabis dispensaries, including geolocation details, Pew researchers used data provided by SafeGraph, which curates information about millions of places of interest around the globe

Another interesting finding is that state borders do little to stop people from getting access to cannabis: one in every five dispensaries in the U.S. is located within 20 miles of a state border. And 29% of these border dispensaries adjoin a neighboring state with less permissive cannabis laws.

Household incomes in areas with high concentrations of dispensaries varied depending on the state, dispelling the myth that they thrive in low-income areas. 

“In four states that have legalized marijuana for both recreational and medical purposes—Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and Virginia—median annual household incomes are at least $20,000 lower in areas with high concentrations of dispensaries than areas in the state with low concentrations of dispensaries,” Pew Research Center reports. “In New Hampshire and New York, by contrast, median household incomes are around $20,000 or more higher in areas with many dispensaries than in areas with few dispensaries.”

The findings show how state cannabis laws have spread since the first statewide law establishing a medical cannabis market in 1996.

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A man who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, and smoked weed on top of broken furniture in Sen. Jeffrey Merkley’s (D-Oregon) office was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison on Thursday. 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a press release on Leap Day, Feb. 29, describing the man’s sentences. Brandon Craig Fellows, 29, of Schenectady, New York, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden to 37 months in prison, plus an additional five months for a contempt of court charge. In total, Fellows was sentenced to 42 months.

Many people heeded the call to make their way to Washington, D.C. shortly after the 2020 election. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Donald Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020. “Be there, will be wild!” Weeks later, thousands of supporters gathered at the U.S. Capitol building in an event that left five dead within a 36-hour time period.

Days after Jan. 6, 2021, Fellows posted on social media, “Brought my heart joy to see these members terrified for their lives. For what they have done and are doing to this country I hope they live in constant fear.”

“I have no regrets. I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t break anything,” Fellows told Bloomberg, five days after storming the Capitol. “I did trespass though, I guess.”

Then on Jan. 16, 2021, Fellows was arrested by FBI agents in New York. The investigation involved the FBI’s Washington and New York field offices, with assistance provided by the New York State Police, the U.S. Capitol Police, and the Metropolitan Police Department.

Fellows was convicted on Aug. 31, 2023, of obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony, and misdemeanor offenses of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, entering and remaining in certain rooms in the Capitol building, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. The DOJ also says that Fellows heckled two U.S. Capitol police officers while he was inside.

What Happened That Day

Fellows made and wore a fake beard out of red yarn, a hat in the shape of a knight’s helmet, sunglasses, and carried a “Trump 2020” flag and a trash can lid that he says he used as a shield. Per federal court documents, on Jan 6. 2021, Fellows stationed himself at the Ellipse near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally and listen to Donald Trump’s speech. 

Fellows followed the massive crowd toward the Capitol building, approaching the building from the west side and fought his way to the Upper West Terrace. From his position, in front of thousands of Capitol stormers on the West Plaza and the West Lawn, Fellows posted a video.

“Oh bro, we’re gonna get gassed soon,” Fellows says in the video. I heard windows just break.”

Fellows made his way around, then filmed/incriminated another man breaking down the Parliamentary Door with a cane.

Fellows crawled through a broken window at about 2:52 p.m. and walked through the Senate Wing Door, waving a “Trump 2020” flag. Once inside, Fellows stood on top of broken furniture and waved the flag some more. He walked into a congressional conference room and then walked across the hall to the private office of Sen. Jeffrey Merkley. 

“I walked in and there’s just a whole bunch of people lighting up in some Oregon room… they were smoking a bunch of weed in there,” he later told a reporter. Fellows was photographed smoking marijuana in Merkley’s office with his feet up on a desk. He next went to the Crypt and walked around. He eventually left the Capitol about 3:45 p.m…

While inside the office, Fellows sat in a chair, put his feet up on a conference table, and smoked some weed. Another stormer, who was live streaming, asked Fellows, “What is your message?” Fellows replied, “Man, oh man, we got pissed. We ripped it out of the hands of these police officers,” followed by a round of laughter.

This case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section. Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York.

So far, over 1,313 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, with over 469 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. The investigation remains ongoing.

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Seventeen percent of Americans aged 18 and older reported smoking pot in 2023. That is largely unchanged from Gallup’s most recent findings on the matter. In 2022, 16% of American adults said they smoke marijuana. 

But the 17% figure represents a marked increase since 2013, when Gallup first added the question to its annual survey measuring Americans’ consumption habits.

That year, a mere seven percent of American adults identified as marijuana smokers. 

“Age is a significant driver of the likelihood of smoking marijuana. About a quarter of young adults, those aged 18 to 34, say they smoke marijuana (26%), but reported use falls to 18% among adults aged 35 to 54 and is even lower, 11%, among adults aged 55 and older,” Gallup said in its analysis. 

Gallup noted other divides in the responses along gender, education level and party identification. 

“Men (19%) are more likely than women (14%) to use marijuana,” the pollster explained. “College graduates (9%) are about half as likely as those without a college degree (21%) to smoke marijuana. Democrats (22%) are more likely than Republicans (12%) to report smoking marijuana, with independents’ rate (17%) falling between them.”

The survey also included a separate question concerning previous marijuana use. On this, half of American adults––50%––said they have tried cannabis.

“Gallup’s much longer trend on ever having tried marijuana shows that experimentation increased sharply in the first decade after the initial measure. Between 1969 and 1977, it jumped 20 percentage points, from 4% to 24%. It rose another nine points by 1985, to 33%, but thereafter stalled at under 40% until 2015, when it ticked up to 44%. It remained at about that level through 2019 but then rose to 49% in 2021, roughly where it is today,” Gallup said.

Gallup’s polling on Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana has captured a country undergoing a seachange when it comes to drug policy.

In November, Gallup published a poll revealing that seven in 10 Americans believe marijuana use should be legal, which was “the highest level yet after holding steady at 68% for three years.”

Gallup explained that only 12% of Americans supported legalization when it asked about it in 1969. 

But ever since states took the lead and ended pot prohibition nearly 12 years ago, public opinion has shifted dramatically.

“Support cracked the 50% threshold in 2013, jumping 10 percentage points to 58% after Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana,” Gallup said in its analysis. “Support has since increased by another 12 points, paralleling the rise in Americans’ self-reported use of the drug. According to Gallup’s July Consumption Habits survey, the percentage saying they personally smoke marijuana has risen 10 points to 17% since 2013, and the percentage who have ever tried it has increased 12 points to 50%.”

The poll also marked the second consecutive year in which “majority support for legalization is found among all major subgroups, including by age, political party and ideology,” Gallup said.

“Self-identified conservatives were the last major subgroup to express majority support, reaching 51% in 2022. Republicans first gave marijuana majority-level backing in 2017. As of today, support for legal marijuana use is highest among self-identified liberals (91%) and Democrats (87%) and lowest among conservatives (52%) and Republicans (55%). Support is inversely correlated with age, reaching 79% among 18- to 34-year-olds. However, even among the oldest age group, nearly two-thirds (64%) are in favor,” Gallup reported. “There are no significant differences in support by gender, race or education. While most of the regional differences seen this year are also not statistically significant, the lower support for legalization in the East than in the West and Midwest is consistent with the recent trend.”

But another finding released by Gallup around that same time showed that, for the first time, “a majority of U.S. adults, 52%, say the U.S. has lost ground in coping with the illegal drug problem, while a record-low 24% say it has made progress.”

Those findings, per Gallup, “mark a sharp reversal from the prior reading in 2019.”

“At that time, more Americans were optimistic that progress was being made (41%) than believed the U.S. was losing ground (30%) in the effort. For most other recent readings, Americans were divided as to whether things were improving or getting worse,” Gallup said.

“The public was most optimistic about the nation’s coping with illegal drugs in 1999 and 2000, when an average of 47% believed the U.S. was making progress on the issue.”

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On July 4, 1776—247 years ago—the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing the colonies’ separation from Great Britain. Many of them not only grew hemp but insisted how important the plant is to the foundation of American agriculture. Sorting through rumors about the Founding Fathers and hemp is another story, with invented quotes and misinformation.

The Declaration’s blanket assertion, “all Men are created equal,” should be taken with a grain of salt given that many Founding Fathers owned slaves, and Thomas Jefferson’s and Henry Clay’s slaves also grew hemp. It would take a lot longer for actual equal rights to materialize.

In colonial times, hemp was an acceptable form of tax payment for over 150 years. Here’s the top Founding Fathers who farmed, milled, processed, or advocated for hemp.

George Washington 

MountVernon.org, George Washington’s estate, admits he grew hemp extensively and compared it to tobacco. “Throughout his lifetime, George Washington cultivated hemp at Mount Vernon for industrial uses,” Mount Vernon writes. “The fibers from hemp held excellent properties for making rope and sail canvas. In addition, hemp fibers could be spun into thread for clothing or, as indicated in Mount Vernon records, used in repairing the large seine nets Washington used in his fishing operation along the Potomac.”

Nearly half a million Americans die annually from tobacco-related illness, but to think that it could have been avoided if Washington had his way is powerful. “At one point in the 1760’s Washington considered whether hemp would be a more lucrative cash crop than tobacco but determined wheat was a better alternative.” Today scholars can sift through George Washington’s detailed grow log.

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson’s hemp crops were massive, and he enlisted slaves to grow it. “Enslaved laborers cultivated hemp both at Monticello and Poplar Forest, Jefferson’s plantation in Bedford County, Virginia,” Jefferson’s estate Monticello.org writes. Jefferson once used 48 pounds of hemp to make clothing for child slaves.

Jefferson’s massive plantation could yield up to 150 pounds in one day: “A hand can tend 3 acres of hemp a year,” Jefferson’s journal reads. Tolerable ground yields 500. lb to the acre. You may generally count on 100 lb for every foot the hemp is over 4 f. high. A hand will break 60 or 70 lb a day, and even to 150 lb.” You can read page 95 of his hemp journal in his own handwriting here.

American-made threshing machines, invented around the time of the Declaration, were used for hemp and were a symbol of power over Great Britain’s dominance.

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense spurred the revolution and it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history when it was published in 1775. It convinced colonists that they were being exploited by the Crown. “In almost every article of defence we abound,” the pamphlet reads. “Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage.” The latter line stirred up speculations, but “rankness” apparently means “fruitfulness” i.e. ensuring that the colonists would not run out of hemp rope.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin owned a hemp-paper mill and published content about hemp’s medical properties. Franklin published the Pennsylvania Gazette, and in it excerpted Ephraim Chambers’ Universal Dictionary, writing that hemp is “of great Use in the Arts and Manufactories,” and that “The Seed is said to have the Faculty of abating Venereal Desires; and its Decoction in Milk, is recommended against the Jaundice.” You can see the original edition here.

Like Washington, Franklin also had a change of heart on the issue of slavery, and was the first president of an abolitionist society, however little changed during his lifetime on the embedded institution of slavery.

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton, America’s first Secretary of the Treasury, oversaw hemp imports in the States, and once imposed a 5% tax on hemp imports in 1790. “… All other goods imported from Foreign Countries shall be liable to a duty of 5 per Cent ad-Valorem, excepting certain articles deemed of importance to Manufactures, among which Hemp is not,” Hamilton wrote on May 21, 1790. “It is therefore certain, that a Duty of five per Cent accrues on the importation of Hemp into the United States from any Foreign Country.”

Henry Clay

Clay ran unsuccessfully for presidency three times, which is why his name is mentioned less often. Clay was also very enthusiastic about hemp and forced his slaves to farm it. “Hemp was Henry Clay’s most lucrative cash crop at Ashland,” HenryClay.org writes. “Men enslaved by Clay grew thousands of pounds of hemp and manufactured it into rope and bagging for the cotton industry. Clay was interested in experimentation and pursued many new innovations in equipment and hemp varieties.”

James Madison

James Madison, America’s fourth President and “Father of the Constitution,” was also reportedly a hemp farmer and claimed that hemp gave him the insight to create a new democratic nation. Launched in 2015 by faculty from the Departments of Biology and Engineering, James Madison University’s Industrial Hemp Research Program coordinates university expertise toward laboratory research.

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Ever heard the old adage, “don’t knock it ‘til you try it’? Gallup’s latest polling data seems to support that concept, showing that 70% of American adults—the ones who have actually tried it—think its effects on users are positive.

These results were collected July 5-26 from Gallup’s Consumption survey, conducted annually during the month of July.

A large majority, or 70% of Americans who have ever tried cannabis think pot’s effects on users are “very” or “somewhat positive,” and 66% think pot’s effect on society is “very” or “somewhat positive.”

But on the other hand, a similarly large majority of people who have never tried cannabis think its effects are negative, with 72% saying its effect on society is “very” or “somewhat negative” and 62% saying its effects on users are “very” or “somewhat negative.”

In other words, one might assume that some people dislike cannabis until they try it for themselves, or see the miraculous healing powers of the plant first-hand, with their own two eyes.

“This survey data indicates that personal experience with cannabis is a relatively surefire cure for ‘reefer madness,’” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. “As greater percentages of adults continue to become familiar with marijuana for either therapeutic purposes or for their own personal use, expect to see many of the more sensational yet specious claims that once dominated the cannabis narrative be regulated to the dustbin of history.”

While about half of Americans have tried pot at some point—48%—just 16% say they are currently smoking it.

America’s Overall View

Americans are split down the middle over pot’s effect on society with 49% considering it positive and 50% considering it negative. Slightly more support for pot’s effect on users was found, with 53% saying it’s positive and 45% negative.

Armentano is “not particularly” surprised American adults remain divided about their views on cannabis.

“We’ve known for some time that there is a percentage of Americans who believe that marijuana ought to be legalized and regulated,” Armentano tells High Times. “Because criminalizing it is a policy that has not worked, and that comes with very high costs. And I think that is reflected in the fact that Gallup finds a supermajority of Americans think marijuana ought to be legal, yet, America’s fairly evenly divided on whether or not marijuana use per se is beneficial. You have a percentage of the public that may not necessarily like cannabis, but they dislike prohibiting cannabis even more.”

Americans, however, appear to recognize the harms of alcohol and see cannabis far more positively than they do alcohol. An earlier Gallup released last month shows that three in four adults in America believe alcohol negatively affects society, and 71% said they believe it is harmful to drinkers.

When Gallup began surveying Americans about cannabis in 1969—only 4% said they thought it should be legal. Through the decades that number has climbed slowly but steadily to reflect the rapidly changing attitudes in the country. According to Gallup’s most recent survey, 68% of U.S. adults, tied for the record high, think pot should be legal.

Witnessing the Benefits of Cannabis

The second-best thing to first-hand experience is the power of social media and how it’s showing the world that cannabis has fewer harms than alcohol and most of all, that it can help heal.

These types of videos might help convert opponents of cannabis reform or the undecided.

An example of this would be viral videos on social media showing the healing powers of THC or CBD. Facebook user Pete Starostecki was a cross-state cannabis refugee, and posted a viral video of CBD oil stopping seizures in real time with his son. Professional British Boxer Anthony Fowler, for instance, posted a video of a dog having a seizure and how fast CBD oil stopped the dog from shaking.

The further influence of cannabis in the media helps to normalize hard-working, functional Americans who choose to consume cannabis responsibly, as evident in the rising numbers in successive Gallup polls.

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With recreational pot now legal in 18 states, cannabis is a bona fide profitable cash crop. In November, Leafly Holdings, Inc. released its first ever “Cannabis Harvest Report” that examined “farm licenses and production in the 11 states that have legal adult-use stores open and operating.” 

“Cannabis is medically legal in 37 states, but for purposes of this report we focused on operating adult-use states—the 11 states where any adult can walk into a licensed store and buy cannabis—for salience to the general public,” the report’s authors wrote. “In those 11 adult-use states, cannabis supports 13,042 licensed farms that harvested 2,278 metric tons of marijuana last year. That amount would fill 57 Olympic swimming pools, or over 11,000 dump trucks stretching for 36 miles—and it’s returning $6,175,000,000 to American farmers every year.”

That figure of a little more than $6 billion “ranks (cannabis) as the fifth most valuable crop in the United States,” trailing corn ($61 billion), soybeans ($46 billion), hay ($17.3 billion), and wheat ($9.3 billion) but outpacing cotton ($4.7 billion), rice ($3.1 billion), and peanuts ($1.3 billion).

The report said that in five of the states where adult-use cannabis sales are legal—Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Oregon—cannabis is actually the most valuable crop.

“In each of the 11 states with adult-use retail stores operating, cannabis ranks no lower than fifth in terms of agricultural crop value—often within two years of the first stores opening. In Alaska, the cannabis crop is worth more than twice as much as all other agricultural products combined,” the report’s authors wrote.

The goal of the harvest report, Leafly said, was to “quantify annual cannabis production in operational adult-use states, just like the USDA’s Economic Research Service does for all non-cannabis crops.”

“The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) tracks annual yields, prices, and estimated values for nearly every commercial crop grown in America. But the USDA does not track legal cannabis due to the plant’s status as a Schedule I drug,” the authors wrote. “That’s just weird because in legal adult-use states, cannabis is consistently one of the highest-value crops in the field.”

“We also believe it’s time to end the stigma attached to cannabis farming. Far too many state agricultural agencies and policymakers still treat cannabis growers with contempt,” they continued. “Some right-to-farm laws specifically exclude cannabis farming. Most cannabis farmers must—by law—hide their crops from public view, as if the mere sight of a fan leaf might induce intoxication. These unfair and unnecessary measures are taken against a legal crop that’s one of the top agricultural products in every adult-use state. Cannabis farmers are farmers, period.”

The report’s findings echo a study released last month. That research, which came via the Marijuana Policy Project, found that the 11 states with licensed adult-use cannabis retailers generated more than $3.7 billion in total revenue in 2021.

That figure amounted to a revenue increase of 34% from recreational cannabis in those states compared with 2020.

“The legalization and regulation of cannabis for adults has generated billions of dollars in tax revenue, funded important services and programs at the state level, and created thousands of jobs across the country. Meanwhile, the states that lag behind continue to waste government resources on enforcing archaic cannabis laws that harm far too many Americans,” said Toi Hutchinson, the president and CEO of the Marijuana Policy Project, who added that the findings serve as “further evidence that ending cannabis prohibition offers tremendous financial benefits for state governments.”

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Stop us if you have heard this before: a record high number of Americans think pot should be legal.

That is the chief takeaway from the latest survey released Thursday by Gallup, which found that more than two-thirds of adults in the United States—or 68 percent—support the legalization of marijuana.

The major pollster said that it has “documented increasing support for legalizing marijuana over more than five decades, with particularly sharp increases occurring in the 2000s and 2010s.” 

The majority support for legalization has been captured by Gallup since 2013, when more than 50 percent of Americans said they supported the policy for the first time.

The latest findings match Gallup’s poll from last year, which also found that 68 percent of American adults supported legalizing marijuana.

The 2020 poll, Gallup noted at the time, showed that “more likely now than at any point in the past five decades to support the legalization of marijuana in the U.S.”

Like last year’s poll, the latest survey found “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,” Gallup explained. “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.”

The poll findings dovetail with what has been a flowering of legalization nationwide over the last decade, as changing attitudes have helped usher in marijuana reform.

More than a dozen states have now moved to legalize recreational pot use for adults, with voters in both liberal and conservative strongholds embracing the reform. Last year, voters in four states—New Jersey, Arizona, Montana and South Dakota—passed ballot measures that legalized marijuana for recreational use.

As is often the case, the polling has clearly been an impetus for the policy.

Gallup Survey Matches Findings from Other Recent Polls

A poll released earlier this year from Quinnipiac University yielded similar findings to Gallup’s latest survey. 

The Quinnipiac poll found about 70 percent of Americans in favor of legalizing marijuana, which was the highest number ever recorded in a national survey.

And while the legalization measures have thus far been implemented on the state and municipal level, there are mounting signs that the federal government may be ready to follow suit.

Earlier this year, Democrats in Congress introduced the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act of 2021, or “The MORE Act of 2021,” which would “decriminalize and deschedule cannabis…provide for reinvestment in certain persons adversely impacted by the War on Drugs…provide for expungement of certain cannabis offenses, and for other purposes.”

In the spring, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York stressed that Democrats are ready to move forward with legalization, citing the success of legalization on the state level.

“In 2018, I was the first member of the Democratic leadership to come out in support of ending the federal prohibition. I’m sure you ask, ‘Well what changed?’ Well, my thinking evolved. When a few of the early states—Oregon and Colorado—wanted to legalize, all the opponents talked about the parade of horribles: Crime would go up. Drug use would go up. Everything bad would happen,” Schumer said at the time. “The legalization of states worked out remarkably well. They were a great success. The parade of horribles never came about, and people got more freedom. And people in those states seem very happy.”

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