(Brennan Linsley, Associated Press file)

Poll: Colorado still shows strong support for marijuana legalization

More than 13 months after recreational pot sales first started in Colorado, residents of the state still support marijuana legalization by a definitive margin, according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll released Tuesday.

When asked, “Do you still support or oppose this law?” 58 percent of respondents said they support the pot-legalizing Amendment 64 while 38 percent said they oppose it. Men support legalization (63 percent) more than women (53 percent). And among the 18-34 age demographic, of course, there was more support of legal pot (82 percent) than among voters 55 and older (50 percent against).

“As for pot, (Colorado voters) remain neither cold nor hot,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll, said in a statement. “Voters still think it was a good move to legalize recreational marijuana, but few admit to joining the ranks of new ‘imbibers.’ ”


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The new numbers show a certain kind of progress for legal marijuana in Colorado. In the 2012 election, Amendment 64 passed 54.8 percent to 45.1 percent, and a December 2014 poll by The Denver Post found that more than 90 percent of the respondents who voted in the 2012 election said they would vote the same way today.

The new Quinnpiac poll also addressed cannabis use and found that 53 percent of respondents have tried marijuana (with 45 percent who said they haven’t) and 19 percent said they had used pot since recreational sales started on Jan. 1, 2014 (while 80 percent said they hadn’t).

The poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., talked with 1,049 Colorado voters between Feb. 5-15. Its margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.