Q: ‘Have you ever tried marijuana?’ Charting USA answers, from 1969

Canada’s Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau has voted to remove criminal penalties, in stark contrast to outgoing PM Stephen Harper, who delivered stern lectures about legalization leading to increased marijuana use by young people. It’s got to come from the top down.

Reuters pointed out that while use has doubled, so has the prevalence of disorders associated with the drug, which it notes is “largely due to the overall increase in new users”.

However, an increase in marijuana use has also increased the prevalence of addiction, according to the authors of the study. The effects of 80-plus years of anti-marijuana propaganda are slowly wearing off. Once people realize that marijuana is actually safer than alcohol, they tend to agree that adults should not be punished just for consuming it. People can see that legalizing and regulating marijuana is going quite well in states like Colorado and Washington. However, there are also more of the older generations shifting their views in support of legalizing the use of cannabis.

Image Cropper – Marijuana enthusiasts walk by a 5-foot plant at the “Weed the People” event to celebrate the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana in Portland, Oregon, July 3, 2015. Medical marijuana is legal in 23 states, including California and New York, and Washington, D.C.

Less than a half-century ago in 1969, support for marijuana legalization among the same group was just 12 percent but it has “has grown steadily over time”, the report said. Marijuana use and selling occur at similar rates across racial and ethnic groups, yet black and Latino individuals are arrested for possessing or selling marijuana at vastly disproportionate rates. But support for marijuana legalization seems to lag far behind among the candidates as opposed to the American public.

“What is very clear right now is that Mr. Harper’s current approach is making marijuana too easy to access for our kids, and at the same time funding street crime, organized gangs, and gun runners”, Trudeau said.

Legalization critics see parallels between marijuana and Big Tobacco, which for years marketed cigarettes as a solution for health problems ranging from stuttering to overeating to nervousness.

It’s a simple enough question – and it’s one respected pollsters, Gallup have been asking USA residents since the “60s. This research tells us that embracing legalization – and the new tobacco-like industry that comes with it – is a grave mistake”.

Gallup polled 1,015 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, via telephone on October 7-11. The JAMA Psychiatry study was published online Wednesday.