Survey: 71% of Americans Believe Cannabis Improves State Economies

A survey by Real Estate Witch found that 71% of Americans believe cannabis legalization improves states’ economies and that while just over half – 52% – of respondents would consider buying a home next to an adult-use cannabis dispensary, 69% said they would buy a home within a mile of one.

Seventy percent of those surveyed said they would pay fair market value or above for a house near cannabis-related entities, with 56% saying they would buy a home next door to a medical cannabis dispensary. 

The survey of 1,000 Americans also found 37% of respondents most commonly referred to cannabis as “weed” – the highest number – followed by “marijuana” (33%), “cannabis” (12%), “pot” (10%), “bud” (4%), and “ganja” (2%). Just 1% of respondents referred to cannabis as “herb” or “reefer,” with 0.6% calling cannabis “grass.”

Eight percent of respondents said cannabis legalization was the more important issue in the U.S. today: inflation ranked first, while LGBTQ rights were the only issue covered which ranked lower than cannabis among those surveyed. es

A supermajority of respondents said they would vote to legalize both medical cannabis (84%) and adult-use cannabis (70%). Fifty-nine percent of respondents who said they do not support cannabis legalization in any form also admitted they do not feel knowledgeable on the topic of legalization.  

Another 41% of those surveyed believed that migration would occur toward states that have approved adult-use cannabis reforms. Twenty-seven percent of respondents believe cannabis legalization increases home values where it’s legal while one in six wrongly believe legalization decreases home values.         

Less than half – 48% – of those surveyed say they strongly support expunging nonviolent, cannabis-related records of convicted offenders; however, 84% of those who say they support full cannabis legalization also support removing or expunging records of convicted offenders. That makes full-legalization supporters five times more likely than those who don’t support legalization in any form to approve of expunging records.  

Only 17% of those who don’t support legalization in any form support expunging records. 

In all, the survey found that 19% of respondents strongly supported keeping cannabis illegal at the federal level, followed by 11% who “somewhat” support keeping it illegal federally.