There is yet another national poll showing a majority of the country “political center” supports legalizing marijuana. A new Esquire-NBC poll designed to figure out where on a spectrum most American voters’ opinions lie found that 52 percent of voters who make of the “politician center” of the country think marijuana should be legal.*

What is unique about this poll is that it didn’t simply ask people if they thought marijuana should be legal or not. Instead it also ask voters rank how strongly they hold their position.

The poll found 34 percent strongly support marijuana legalization and 18 percent support it somewhat. Only a combined 33 percent said they oppose marijuana legalization with 13 percent opposing it somewhat and another 20 percent strongly opposed. Another 15 percent said they are completely neutral on the issue.

Not only does a majority of the center of country support marijuana reform but the intensity is significantly greater on the pro-legalization side.* In politics intensity can sometimes be even more important than raw numeric strength.

The results are very similar to the Pew Research poll from April. It found 52 percent support for legalization with 45 percent opposed. Now with confirmation from several national polls it is clear a majority of the country wants cannabis to be legal.

Photo by Dank Depot under Creative Commons License

*correction: The poll appears to report on the opinions of people in the “political center,” not all voters. Post has been changed to reflect this.