Illegal drugs have always been a major foundation in American history. This topic of public opinion is nothing new. According to Gallup, recently Americans have began to come together on debate of whether the United States is doing enough to cope with the use of illegal drugs. This is the closest the numbers have been (34%) since the early 1970's. Since the beginning of the new millenium, about one-in-three Americans have felt that drugs have become an extremely serious problem. This percentage has stayed primarily the same throughout the past 10 years.
What I found most interesting about the Gallup Polls is the increasing number of people who think marijuana should be made legal. All the way back in 1969 only 12% of the American general public believed in the legalizion of marijuana. As recently as October of 2009 that number has already grown to 44% of Americans, and looks to be continuing to rise. Could this be because we live in a more "laid back" society? Could it be a that society is "revolting" against the government? These 44% of people could also be part of the 42% who would like to see a tax put on marijuana in order to make it safe and legal. What the Gallup Polls have showed me is that Americans views on drugs are constantly changing. If anything, it goes to show that no two people have the same feelings about illegal drugs in modern day American culture.
(Information from Gallup)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1657/Illegal-Drugs.aspx
I was curious about the statistic of only 12% of Americans in 1969 were for the legalization of marijuana. Just generally speaking, the 60's and 70's were the heyday of drug use. I saw this while browsing on Gallup...
ReplyDelete"Alana Anderson, a child custody officer, graduated from college in 1969. 'My generation was told that marijuana caused acne, blindness, and sterility,' she said. 'It was a scare tactic rather than an education tactic.'"
(http://www.gallup.com/poll/6331/decades-drug-use-data-from-60s-70s.aspx).
It's still hard to believe that all those hippies out there in the 60's and 70's didn't want to legalize their all-time FAVORITE hobby, but maybe because there were all these "scare tactics" that told the public bad things, that they decided not to legalize for the public's consumption? Still, a strange statistic!
But, I do like your actual focus that you wrote in your introduction post about the topic of steroids. I think there is a lot of information out there these days involving steroids whether it is a professional athlete or a high school baseball player. One statistic that would be neat to find out about would be if the public believes whether athletes in the hall of fame who have since been guilty of using steroids, should be kept in the hall of fame. I know there is a lot of arguments about that! Look forward to reading!
I do believe that by legalizing marijuana you would be able to generate an untapped source of tax revenue and that is needed especially in our current economic state.
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