The ‘Marijuana Middle’ is the New Drug Policy Majority

On Tuesday morning, some key Republicans and conservative scholars will huddle at the Heritage Foundation to explain how "scientific understanding of the real dangers of marijuana" should chasten the people who want legal weed in their states. The timing is ideal, as the moderate Third Way think tank is just out with a poll showing clear consensus in favor of medical marijuana and narrowly in favor of straight-up legalization.

The data was collected in two waves, first with a late summer focus group, next with an October poll of 856 registered voters, conducted online. That doesn't raise any flags; the 50-47 split in favor of legal recreational marijuana is in sync with the 51-47 support level Gallup found this year. When the data was broken down by subgroup, Third Way found that millennials, non-whites, and independents all strongly favored legalization. More than 30 percent of Republicans favored it. And everyone favored medical marijuana. The issue was so promising that Third Way was able to identify a "marijuana middle," open to some relaxation of the law, if it were explained to them smartly enough.