From Seed to Smoke — A Public Opinion Exploration of Marijuana Legalization in Uruguay

• In Event: Political Participation and Political Preferences

Abstract

Uruguay is the first country in the world to fully legalize marijuana at a national scale. Over half of the respondents in the 2014 AmericasBarometer in Uruguay stated that they disagree with the government's regulation and legalization of the growth, use, and possession of cannabis. Thus, how can it be explained that , in the only country in the world that has a legal cannabis market, people mostly oppose the marijuana marketplace that the government has implemented? This paper will attempt to explore this question utilizing an empirical quantitative methodology. By engaging with and expanding the political science literature that explores political system support, I hypothesize that individuals who express higher levels of specific system support will be more likely to approve of the marijuana legalization framework. Utilizing numerous control variables, the results show that higher levels of specific system support have a strong positive relationship to levels of approval of marijuana legalization. On the other hand, the results show that there is no such relationship between diffuse system support and support for marijuana legalization in Uruguay. The main real-life implication of these results is that modifying the marijuana legalization framework or implementation would not necessarily yield a change in support for the diffuse political system in Uruguay.

Author

• Emily D Bello-Pardo, American University