Should States Or The Government Regulate Marijuana?

At the turn of the century, only 31 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization and that soared to 61 percent by October 2017. Nine U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes while another 21 have permitted its use for medicinal reasons. The status of the drug is determined at state level and that can often result in a headache when it comes to tracing all the states where it's actually legal.

When it comes to legislation, a recent Morning Consult poll found that a majority of the U.S. public want state level regulation to remain the case, rather than regulation handled by the federal government. It found that 56 percent of Americans want marijuana regulation handled through local legistlation while just over a quarter of the public favor federal government regulation. Broken down by party, majorities of Democrats and Republicans also back state-level regulation. Morning Consult said that experts think states will continue to take up regulation independently and that all of them will be either fully legal or medicinally legal by 2022.