Will California Be Next To Legalize Pot ?

As you know, two states (Colorado and Washington) voted to legalize the possession and recreational use of marijuana by adults in the last election. And since polls have shown that a majority of Americans now support the legalization of marijuana, the real question is -- which state will be the next to legalize pot for recreational use?

A new poll by Field Research Corporation shows that state could be California. This survey was done between November 14th and December 5th, and 1,002 Californians were polled with a 3.2 point margin of error (with the margin of error among subsets being 4.5 points). That poll found that 55% of Californians now support marijuana legalization, while only 31% oppose it. This is the first time a clear majority has been found to support legalization since the poll started surveying on this issue back in 1969 (when 75% opposed legalizing it).

Thanks to the results of this new study, the California Attorney General has given the "green light" to a marijuana advocacy group to collect signatures to put a legalization initiative on the 2014 California ballot. The group must collect about 500,000 signatures by February 24th to qualify for the ballot.

California has voted on this issue once before -- in 2010. But at that time there was only a plurality in favor of legalization -- and after those groups who make money off of keeping the herb illegal pumped a ton of money into an anti-legalization campaign, the initiative lost 46.5% to 53.5%.

But now that Colorado and Washington have broken the ice, and a larger percentage of Californians favor legalization, it looks like California could become the third state to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults.