More Britons Support Decriminalizing Cannabis Than Oppose It

While many parts of the world are now trending towards adult-use legalization and/or comprehensive medical cannabis reform, if they haven’t already implemented such reforms, Britain continues to lag behind.

Technically, Britain does allow limited use of cannabis for medical purposes, with a heavy emphasis on the word ‘limited.’ It’s estimated that well over a million people in Britain could benefit from medical cannabis, however, the number of people actually afforded safe access is minimal.

Non-medical cannabis reform seems even further out of reach than comprehensive medical cannabis reform, although that’s not due to a lack of support from British citizens.

YouGov recently conducted a survey in which it asked the question, “To what extent would you support or oppose the de-criminalisation of the following currently banned substances?”

Out of the fourteen substances listed, cannabis was the only substance that received a greater level of support compared to the level for opposing reform.

Forty-five percent of respondents expressed support for decriminalizing cannabis while forty-three percent were opposed. Thirteen percent of respondents indicated that they ‘don’t know’ which way they feel about the question.

The next closest substance on the results chart was mushrooms, which received 28% support, 55% opposed, and 17% undecided.

The thirteen percent of undecided citizens when it came to decriminalizing cannabis is obviously significant, in that it’s a large enough percentage of people that if they decided to join the ‘opposed’ camp, that would obviously result in a majority.

However, those people could just as easily fall on the ‘support’ side of the equation, and studies have consistently found that the level of support for cannabis reform in polls is lower than the actual level of support in society. Hopefully lawmakers in Britain take notice.