Pot Poll – Louisiana Residents Against Legalizing Marijuana For Personal Use

Many Louisiana residents have changed their point of view on pot over the past few years. The perception that marijuana should remain criminalized is slowly shrinking across the state. More and more Louisiana residents are supporting medical uses for marijuana but still the majority of the state's residents don't feel legal pot for personal use is a good idea.

Michael Henderson, Director of LSU's Public Policy Research Lab revealed these statistics to the Louisiana Radio Network.He said that 52% of Louisiana residents are opposed to legalizing pot for personal use. However, that does reflect a change in thinking through the  years.

"It used to be that opposition for legalizing marijuana for personal use out polled support by 14 points two years ago.  That's been cut in half to about seven points."

As one might expect the greatest support for personal use pot comes from the younger side of the voting block. The study showed that 68% of Louisiana citizens aged 18-29 were in favor of legalizing marijuana for personal use. On the older side of the spectrum, 68% of the state's voters over the age of 65 were against it.

A majority of those surveyed said they would support medical marijuana use in the state, however the politics of the recent Senate race may have played a part in how those numbers wavered at little since the last survey was done.

"When people sort of saw how the parties were aligned in that campaign they shifted their views to align with their favorite candidates or parties.  It could have been, I don't know that for sure."