RALEIGH – Nearly three-quarters of registered North Carolina voters support legalizing marijuana for medical use, and nearly two-thirds support legalizing it for recreational use, according to a SurveyUSA poll released Friday.
SurveyUSA interviewed 900 North Carolina adults online from Oct. 7 through Oct. 11 for WRAL-TV. The marijuana questions were asked of 778 respondents identified as registered voters. The pollster used a nonprobability sample drawn from a market-research panel and weighted the results to population benchmarks and party affiliation.
On medical marijuana, 74% said use should be legal, 15% said it should be illegal and 11% were unsure. SurveyUSA reported a credibility interval of plus or minus 4 percentage points for that question.
On recreational marijuana, 63% said use should be legal, 26% said it should be illegal and 11% were unsure. The credibility interval was plus or minus 4.4 points. SurveyUSA found recreational support at 57% in a 2022 North Carolina poll, compared with 32% opposed at that time.
The new results arrive while a marijuana proposal remains pending in the North Carolina General Assembly. Senate Bill 1072, filed May 4, would ask voters to consider state constitutional amendments addressing limited personal-use decriminalization and medical use. The bill received its first reading May 5 and was referred to the Senate Rules Committee. The legislature’s public bill record lists no later action.
The poll does not change state law or predict how lawmakers will vote. It measures public opinion as legislators consider whether, and how, to address marijuana policy. WRAL separately reported the newly released findings and described them as showing broad voter support for both medical and recreational legalization.
Because SurveyUSA used an online nonprobability sample, its reported credibility intervals are not the same as the conventional margin of sampling error used for a random-probability poll. The results also describe opinions during the Oct. 7-11 field period and may change as voters receive more information or policy proposals change.
Sources
- SurveyUSA: North Carolina Poll #28047 marijuana results and methodology
- WRAL: North Carolina marijuana-policy poll results
- North Carolina General Assembly: Senate Bill 1072 status and text
Photo Credit: Jennifer Martin (MarijuanaPropagation.com) via Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0. Marijuana plant photographed July 15, 2015; contextual file photograph. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Rights: CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped for layout.
Editor’s Note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.