Survey data show growing support for a legalized recreational market since voters approved it a decade ago.
Ten years ago, 54 percent of Massachusetts residents voted in favor of Question 4, a ballot measure that authorized possession, home growing, and commercial distribution of recreational cannabis. Based on recent polling, voters do not appear inclined to overturn that choice by supporting Question 8, which is on the ballot next Tuesday.
Question 8, a.k.a. the Eliminate Recreational Marijuana Sales and Allow Limited Possession Initiative, would permit adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of cannabis. However, it would prohibit cultivation or purchases from state-licensed retailers, pushing individuals toward the black market.
The initiative “would keep personal possession of marijuana legal, keep medical marijuana legal, and stop commercial marijuana stores,” its supporters say. They claim that legalization has harmed productivity and led to increases in “fatal car accidents,” “workplace injuries,” “healthcare costs,” “crime (like DUI’s),” “ER visits,” and “mental health conditions like psychosis, severe anxiety, and schizophrenia, particularly in young adults.”
Public sentiment does not seem swayed by those assertions. Across eight polls from mid-February to mid-October, backing for Question 8 ranged from 20 percent to 41 percent. In the most recent survey, conducted by The Boston Globe, 71 percent of respondents said they planned to vote no on Question 8, which implies that experience with legalization has markedly strengthened opposition to pot prohibition in Massachusetts.
Question 8’s sponsor, the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts, is funded almost entirely by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). As of October 20, the Virginia-based group had spent $3.7 million on the project, compared to $2.8 million in spending by the opposition, which includes several marijuana businesses.
SAM’s co-founder, Kevin Sabet, who served as a drug policy adviser during the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations, says he was motivated by the concerns of Massachusetts residents who approached him. “Many of them supported this initiative ten years ago and now feel betrayed,” Sabet told WGBH, an NPR station in Boston. If so, the polls indicate such converts are far outnumbered by former Question 4 opponents who have traveled that road in the opposite direction.
“We’re under no illusions that the bluest state in the country is going to pass this easily with flying colors,” Sabet told WBUR, another Boston NPR station, a few weeks ago. “But we want to have that conversation.”
The conversation clearly is not going the way Sabet hoped. Massachusetts, which was the fifth state to legalize recreational marijuana, is now one of two dozen, which together account for most of the U.S. population. In October 2025, Gallup put nationwide support for marijuana legalization at 64 percent, which was down a bit from the peak of 70 percent recorded in 2023 but still 16 points higher than in 2012, when Colorado and Washington started this ball rolling.
Public support for legalizing recreational marijuana tends to be even higher in states that have done it. In Civiqs surveys last December, support in 15 states where voters had approved legalization ranged from 62 percent in Missouri to 77 percent in Oregon. It had increased since legalization in every state but New Jersey, where it was down one point from the 67 percent of voters who approved Public Question 1 in 2020. In Massachusetts, support had risen from 54 percent to 76 percent.
The fate of two other drug policy initiatives that voters will consider next week is less clear. As far as I can tell, pollsters have not asked voters about them.
Colorado’s Proposition 132 would make manufacturing or distributing any amount of illicit fentanyl a Level 1 drug felony punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of eight years. Under current law, the penalties vary depending on the amount of fentanyl involved.
In Idaho, House Joint Resolution 4, a proposed constitutional amendment, would strip voters of the power to legalize marijuana or any other psychoactive substance. If the initiative passes, which requires approval by a simple majority, that power will be reserved to the state legislature.
