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Wyoming Attitudes Toward Marijuana Changing

Dank Depot / Flickr

More Wyoming residents favor the legalization of marijuana than at any time in the past four years. That’s according to a survey of around 600 randomly selected people conducted by the Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center at the University of Wyoming.

Senior research scientist Rodney Wambeam said people nowadays see marijuana as less harmful than in previous years.

He explains normalization is a large part of it.

“First of all, the legalization is taking place around the country,” he said. “It’s a much more common thing out there. You have advertising out there, billboards in Colorado and other places, and just the reason that culture changes. People talk to each other. It’s in media. Things like that.”

According to the UW survey, support among Wyoming residents for legal, recreational use of marijuana shifted from 37-to-41% between 2014 and 2016. This year, that figure has grown to 49%.

Support for medical marijuana is even higher at 86%.

While support for marijuana legalization has grown since the survey began in 2014, researchers note that a clear majority of Wyoming residents continue to believe that individuals caught possessing small amounts of marijuana should not be jailed for the offense.

Kayla writes about energy policy, the oil and gas industry and new electricity developments.