Attitudes on Legalizing Marijuana Black Hills State University Abstract With the differing views of political parties, the debate regarding the legalization of marijuana has been an ongoing controversy that has shown the ability to divide persona and social attitudes especially in regards to an individual’s political party affiliation and their political views. To determine the validity of the above given statement, data was gathered from the General Social Surveys ranging from 1994-2000. The data was analyzed using a linear regression model.

Preliminary exults have indicated that there is no statistically significant relationship between an individual’s attitude and their political party affiliation and or their political view. The debate over legalizing marijuana, a very controversial issue in the United States, has been debated for ages, which has resulted into a divided American society. The societal attitudes that have dominated for the past eighty years range from individuals who believe that marijuana should be legal for the economic benefits to those who feel that no matter what, marijuana should stay illegal due to their opinion that it is a drug.

These attitudes include, for example, marijuana being a gateway drug which leads to harder drugs; marijuana is only okay to bring relief to those who have terminal or debilitating diseases; marijuana has been around for thousands of years, and since it only affects the user, should be legal; and marijuana should never be legal for any reason to any person because the government is against decentralization. Figure 1 According to Figure 1, the varying views of legalizing marijuana has started to see a decrease in those who believe that marijuana should be illegal, and an increase n those who believe that it should be legal.