Determinants of Public Support for Marijuana Legalization in Uruguay, the United States, and El Salvador

• Published date: 01 October 2016
• DOI: 10.1177/0022042616649005
• Author: José Miguel Cruz,María Fernanda Boidi,Rosario Queirolo
• Date: 01 October 2016
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal of Drug Issues

2016, Vol. 46(4) 308 –325

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0022042616649005

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Article

Determinants of Public Support for

Marijuana Legalization in Uruguay,

the United States, and El Salvador

José Miguel Cruz1, Rosario Queirolo2,

and María Fernanda Boidi3

Abstract

What are the determinants of public support for marijuana legalization? In the last 3 years,

Uruguay and the states of Colorado and Washington have legalized the production, sale, and

consumption of recreational marijuana. Although Uruguay and the United States have followed

different paths toward legalization, these cases provide an excellent opportunity to explore

the relationship between drug policy implementation and public opinion in different political

contexts. Using logistic regressions on data from the 2014 AmericasBarometer cross-national

surveys conducted in Uruguay, the United States, and El Salvador, this article examines citizen

views toward marijuana regulation and the individual determinants of support for legalization

in a comparative fashion. Results underline the role of political socialization variables in those

countries in which legalization is being debated. Across countries, some of the most important

factors for predicting positive attitudes toward marijuana regulation are related to political

tolerance, ideology, and the views toward the government.

Keywords

marijuana, marijuana legalization, support for drug policy reform, Uruguay

Introduction

Why do people support legalization of controlled substances? Why do persons who may or may

not consume drugs back drug legalization measures? The recent cases of marijuana regulation in

Uruguay and the several approaches to its liberalization in the United States provide us with an

opportunity to explore the individual factors associated with public support for such measures in

very different social and political contexts. In the United States, the legalization of marijuana in

several states have brought drug policy to the forefront of the political debate (Bennett & Walsh,

2014; Caulkins, Lee, & Kasunic, 2012). In Uruguay, the swift implementation of total regulation

led by the national government has turned this South American country into a potential model for

legalization around the world (Hetzer & Walsh, 2014).1

1Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

2Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay

3Insights Research and Consulting, Montevideo, Uruguay

Corresponding Author:

José Miguel Cruz, Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University, 11200 SW

8th St., DM 353, Miami, FL 33199, USA.

Email: jomcruz@fiu.edu

649005JODXXX10.1177/0022042616649005Journal of Drug IssuesCruz et al.

research-article2016

Cruz et al. 309

In general, observers have equated the developments in Uruguay and the United States, where

state legislatures are approving bills to allow the production, commercialization, and consump-

tion of cannabis (Pardo, 2014; Room, 2014). It is usually assumed that Uruguay came to legalize

recreational cannabis commercialization in the same way the process developed in the United

States: by popular demand. Actually, the processes in Uruguay and the United States have been

very different. In Uruguay, marijuana legalization followed a top-down course in which the presi-

dent and the national legislature agreed, with little initial public support, to pass the most com-

prehensive regulatory bill on marijuana in the Western Hemisphere (Kilmer, Kruithof, Pardal,

Caulkins, & Rubin, 2013). Uruguay’s marijuana legalization law resulted not from growing

popular demand, but rather from a strategy drawn up in the office of the president (Garat, 2015).

In this article, using a cross-national survey of adults, we explore the factors associated with

public support for marijuana legalization. Specifically, we examine the experiences of Uruguay

and the United States, with El Salvador as a contrasting case. We devote the most attention to

Uruguay, where the government took unilateral action to legalize marijuana despite widespread

public opposition. This apparent contradiction makes Uruguay an interesting case for under-

standing the importance of political factors in the process of drug policy reform.

Factors Associated to Support for Marijuana Legalization

What are the individual factors behind support for marijuana legalization? Does the govern-

ment’s stance on policies have any effect on whether citizens manifest support for marijuana

legalization? Studies conducted in the United States indicate that policy outcomes have tended to

be consistent with public opinion, especially when it relates to politically salient issues (Monroe,

1998; Page & Shapiro, 1983). Some studies place public opinion as an important determinant of

policy. Paul Burstein (2003), for instance, argues that salient topics for the public tend to enhance

the impact of public opinion on policy. However, when it comes to drug issues, research has not

been able to establish a consistent correlation between people’s attitudes toward drugs and public

policies (DiChiara & Galliher, 1994; Millhorn et al., 2009). In fact, as Resko (2014) has pointed

out, public opinion about drug policy has actually been noticeably absent in the research litera-

ture. Despite the abundance of media polls about drug-related policies, very little research has

been conducted by academics. In addition, there is the belief that the political complexities sur-

rounding drug policy have prevented a closer alignment between public attitudes toward drugs

and official policies (Singleton & Rubin, 2014).

Except for Khatapoush and Hallfors (2004), who studied the impact of legalization of medical

cannabis on attitudes toward marijuana use and found little change, research has concentrated

almost exclusively on the impact of policy change on consumption and drug use behavior (Cerdá,

Wall, Keyes, Galea, & Hasin, 2012; Chu, 2014; Single, 1989). Marijuana legalization initiatives

in Uruguay and the United States thus provide a unique opportunity to study the context in which

drug policy decisions take place. In Uruguay, the “official” national policy toward cannabis

seems to be at odds with the mainstream views. The Uruguayan government passed what is con-

sidered to be the world’s most ambitious marijuana regulatory bill in an unfavorable public opin-

ion environment (Hetzer & Walsh, 2014; Walsh & Ramsey, 2015). In the United States,

conversely, policy responses are divided: Although the federal government has a formal stance

against legalization (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2015), several states are advancing

in the legalization of medicinal and—in some cases—recreational marijuana. Furthermore,

despite federal policy, the White House does not seem to be challenging the states that decided to

advance legalization. This is happening in a context in which U.S. public opinion has been

increasingly in favor of marijuana legalization (Ferner, 2015; Paul, 2003). Surveys in the United

States have extensively addressed the factors associated with support for marijuana legalization

(Carroll, 2005; Ferner, 2015), but little is known about public opinion toward these initiatives