elections are won and lost at the state level. how do you appeal to the voters of your state is the most important thing. there are national trends. someone alluded about the six- year of a presidential term. the average number of out of power gains in the six-year of a presidential second term. this is exactly the new year that republicans need. this has arisen in washington, dc. and makes it much more difficult for there to be anything but a move toward the republican side. he wanted to pin me down about recruiting candidates. you certainly can have this conversation with the democrats who indicated that they were going to have been in place for nearly a two-year time frame. the places they talked about,

they have been unsuccessful in south dakota, west virginia, kentucky. they have had a difficult time. i contribute this in part to the circumstance we find ourselves in with a president that is so partisan and moving them. there is this continual scandal with the iressa and with the reporters. with the department of health and human services. this makes it more difficult for democrats to recruit and when elections. >> we will leave it there. thank you for joining us on "newsmakers" this sunday morning. >> i appreciate it very much. >> what does he get out of this job? >> he gets an opportunity to bolster his national profile.

he gets some goodwill from his colleagues in the senate, certainly from senate leader mcconnell. he will have help with the state and any future ambitions he has with in the senate caucus. >> going back to immigration, which is one of the centerpieces of the agenda, there seems to be a different track between the house and the senate. >> the senate republicans are trying to build a big win. this is not what speaker boehner or cantor walk. it is with the younger members of the house republican conference. they are the ones who drive the debate. if john boehner is going to bring a bill to the floor, he needs to bring a bill that can achieve what he calls the hatchet rule. if he passes it without a majority, you are seeing a

refresh of the challenges that we saw earlier this year. >> it is a sign of this. you have an ad state senator. i think ultimately he and senator roberts will do this when it comes to the floor. the fact that he is still saying he has to be improved. marco rubio said it has to be bolstered.

it reflects that all of the senators are still having to pull off this. >> it is akin to raising the retirement age. >> it will lead to a primary challenge. >> jonathan martin, joining the new york times later this month, we appreciate you being with us. thank you for being with us. >> on you for joining us.

the next "washington journal," jonathan strong looks at the republican strategy in congress. and the democrat plan from the texas congressman. and, the director of transportation for america discusses how the government gauges the safety of bridges. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c- span. >> when the attorney general arraigned me in california after the x addition, he indicated he wanted the death penalty on each of the three charges. he wanted the death penalty three times. realize how serious they were. made me realize it was not about me. you could not be killed three times.

it was about instruction of this imaginary enemy and i was the embodiment of that. >> she was not that interested in talking about what happened, the crime, the implications by the fbi. she was not the love story. she was not interested in talking about it. one of these people you do not necessary go to direct we -- nexus -- necessarily go to directly. away at the important people in her life that she knew and trusted. i was able to get them involved, let them see my previous work. slowly, she came around and agreed to meet me. tonight at 8 a.m. -- 8:00 p.m. on c-span.

>> one of the first two states to legalize the possession and sale of marijuana. next, a look at domestic implications. this portion is about one hour and 20 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> good afternoon, everybody. all of you in this room know that last november, the states of colorado and washington legalize marijuana in the teeth of u.s. federal prohibition, something that no jurisdiction in the modern world has done --

out right legalization of not only consumption but distribution, sales, and so on. those two states are not likely to be the last. there are bills in the legislature to legalize in rhode island, massachusetts, pennsylvania, and maine, that i know of. ballot initiatives are possible or likely in 2014 and 2016 in states that may include california, oregon, maine, alaska. we are just seeing the beginning of something, but what? states began decriminalizing and allowing the use of medical marijuana back in the 1970's, so there's nothing new about that, but something very different seems to have happened lately. as if this iceberg suddenly surfaced above the water, this legalization and a new kind of momentum.

what is going on? how durable will it prove to be? what are the implications, not just for drug policy, but for american politics more generally in this very new territory we are entering. i would like to welcome you all to discuss that -- here to discuss that and thank you for it. this event is part of a series that brookings and our partner organization, the washington office on latin america, are conducting.

we thank peter lewis among our supporters for helping to make this possible. we thank wola for working with us closely. i especially thank our panelists, who as you are about to hear have done a remarkable job. i hope all of you have picked up a copy of their paper on the new politics of marijuana legalization. it is a gold mine of information. bill and e.j. are very distinguished scholars of public opinion, and that helps, but it

also helps that they have access to more information than anyone has had on this issue before. they crossed tabs in ways that no one has ever even conceived of. you will get the fruits of their research in just a moment. a word about each of them -- you can read bios on your own, so i will keep the short. phil is a senior fellow here at brookings, the holder of the chair in brookings governance studies programs. he is a participant in six presidential campaigns. i'm trying to work out how you get to six. i was going to say, was it smith or was it rosenfeld? [laughter] he is the author of eight books.

e.j. dionne, to his left, also well known to you as the syndicated columnist for the "washington post," well known to us at brookings as a senior fellow here and a professor in the foundations of democracy and culture at georgetown university a great title, by the way. i would like to have that on my business card. they will each talk for about 10 minutes each on different aspects of their findings. our two, enters just really could not be better. -- our two commenters. anna greenberg has 15 years' experience in polling and public research and the methodology thereof. she has worked with many elected officials, many advocacy groups. directly on point for us, she has done extensive polling and research for advocates in drug policy reform including, among many other things, she led the research supporting washington's successful initiative 502, which is the initiative that passed in november. she has also been active on the issue in other states. she has a work in california, oregon, alaska, south dakota, arizona -- the list goes on. she has expertise in women in politics, lgbt writes, religion and politics. she is a great person to talk to about social issues. i also want to make sure to thank her publicly for access to a gold mine of data, which she and her colleagues have developed in the course of their research over the last two years. i think our panelists will agree that they have benefited greatly from access to that work. last but hardly least is my favorite rising star in the world of political commentary, a man to watch if there ever was

one. a reformed lawyer -- no one is perfect. he is a senior elections analyst for real clear politics. he is someone i have always watched for -- because he does his own thinking, his own research, and looks at the statistics every morning to see what is really going on. he is the author of the 2012 book "a loss majority: why the future of government is up for grabs and who will take it," and he is the co-author of the 2014 almanac of american politics. for those of you who are online and following on twitter or who want to tweak a question, we are taking questions by twitter today -- or who want to tweet a question. our hash ted is -- hashtag is #mjlegalization.

>> it is a pleasure to be part of this panel, i must say. each of us have 10 minutes, and i have seven points to make in my opening remarks, so i will be brisk. if i had in academics 50 minutes for a lecture, i would share with you my analysis of how the change in sentiment about the legalization of marijuana tracks with cultural history over the past few decades. you have, i think, a rise in the early 1960's through much of the

1970's. a decline in support -- a dramatic decline in support starting in the late 1970's and running through much of the reagan years. stabilization. a gradual rise during the clinton years. stabilization during much of george w. bush's term, and then a take off like a rocket in roughly the past eight years or so. pro-legalization sentiment is up 20 points in just over a decade, driven in part by rising social liberalism among adults. according to research, you have a narrow pro-legalization majority for the first time in history, and that broadly tracks with other surveys are saying. so that is my first point. dramatic upsurge in support for legalization. point two, this upsurge is broadly based. in recent years, support for legalization has risen in every sub-group we examined. men and women, blacks, whites, hispanics, republicans, independents, democrats, conservatives, moderates, liberals, and among every level of education. 3, this shift is not driven by moral conviction, unlike many other social issues. yet, the share of americans who view marijuana use as immoral

has fallen from 50% to 32% in just seven years. on the other hand, the share who view it as moral has barely budged and now stands at only 12%. so what is this missing half of the population? they do not see it as a moral issue at all, and that seems to me as close to the heart of the matter of the shift. if they do not see it as a moral issue at all, what do they see when they look at it as a practical issue? well, that brings me to my fourth point -- public perception of basic facts have changed in ways that compare to ground for a shift toward pro- legalization sentiment. first of all, marijuana is no

longer considered worse than alcohol along the dimensions that most americans bring to that judgment. second, and perhaps even more important, there has been a sharp decline in the percentage of americans who see marijuana as a gateway drug to things that are harder and even more dangerous. that percentage now stands at only 38% compared to 58% who do not see marijuana as a gateway drug. here is the other aspect of the shift towards the practical option -- as far as we can see,

a main poll in the tent of the pro-legalization shift -- a main pole in the tent of the pro- legalization shift is the difficulty and consequences of enforcement. it is much like the shifting sentiments during the 1920's and early 1930's about prohibition. how am i doing? great? 72% of americans now believe that government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth. this consensus includes a majority of every population subgroup we examined. here was a striking finding -- even when respondents are told that marijuana use is still prohibited under federal law, 60% of respondents say that the federal government should not enforce its own law in states that have legalized the use of marijuana.

again, this anti-enforcement sentiment is extremely broad- based. among the subgroups we examined, there is no group a majority of which supports federal enforcement against the states. 0.6 -- point six, in our analysis, this issue is not fully analogous to other social issues which tend to try to compare it to. unlike abortion, there has been a strong shift towards one side of the debate that is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. the new entrants into the pool of adults in the american

population for purposes of survey research, anyway, it is on balance about twice as likely to be in favor of legalization as are those who are exiting the pool of adults through death. but unlike same-sex marriage, many of those who favor legalization are none the less uneasy about their position. there is a fair amount of ambivalence. there's not a lot of enthusiasm. i suppose on some college campuses, you could find a lot of enthusiasm, but in the population on a whole -- in the population as a whole, there is a kind of ambivalence and resignation to the fact that the effort to enforce marijuana laws has been so costly, so it is not worth it anymore. seventh and finally, there is a theme unknown, the extent of which is hard to assess. it is possible -- i _ the word possible -- that asthma when deals -- i underscore the word possible -- as millennials age, their views will shift toward the conservative, as their

boomer parents did, paving the way for a conservative tide. >> thank you. i want to begin very quickly by taking jonathan, and there is no one whom you will find who enjoys working more with him then jonathan. if there's anything wrong in the papers, it is not their fault. lastly, mike and anna, who gave us one of her specialty briefings -- i told her it was so much fun, i want to work for congress just to get regular phone briefings. mike was extraordinarily helpful. the fact that this room looks a lot younger than most brookings rooms suggests one of two things either lots of insurance have started arriving in washington, or our analysis in the paper is correct, and maybe both are true. when you look at this trend toward legalization, there are two important facts -- one, you

can see if you have the paper on the chart on page two, where the movement even in the last few years since 2010 in favor of legalization crosses all groups and is marked among older respondents, it is important among middle age respondents, and there is even an increase among those over 65. but the other aspect to this, which makes it so interesting to speculate about what the future

on this issue is is an interesting clumping by age. it has some things in common with the movement towards support for gay marriage, but also, there is a difference. on the one hand, what it has in common is there is a large gap between those under 30 and those over 65. if you look at the first chart on page 12, you will see that the numbers are almost exactly reversed. by 33 to 64, people over 65 oppose legalization. that would suggest what underscores how bill ended, which is that we are unlikely to return to a time when there is strong opposition to the legalization of marijuana just by virtue of generational change, but the clump in the middle is -- opinion is much more closely divided. among 30 to 64-year-olds, there

has been a shift in the group towards support of legalization, but that makes it somewhat different from gay marriage, and i will come back to that where i will just say that where opinion

is an almost rate line by age, support just regularly rises -- were opinion is almost a straight line by age. it must be fun to poll on this issue because it is not like all other issues we are dealing with. one of the things that struck bill and me when we were going through the data is that this is not -- does not have quite the partisan or ideological flavoring that so many other issues have. there is partisanship and ideology here, not surprisingly democrats and liberals are more likely to favor legalization and republicans or conservatives, and if you put them together in a smaller group, liberal democrats are very strongly pro- legalization. conservative republicans are strongly against. but what is striking is that there are very large minorities in each of these groups -- liberal and conservative, republican, democrat -- who descend on the dominant view. up to 37% of both conservatives and republicans favor legalization. 39% of democrats and 25% of liberals oppose it.

the relatively small partisan gap in comparison with other issues can partly be explained by the fact that republicans are not nearly as likely as democrats to say they have used marijuana. 43% of republicans reported past use, as did 47% of democrats. perhaps this gives us some idea of how we can reach a budget deal on capitol hill. reported use among whites and blacks is identical, but much lower among hispanics. there is agreement across partisan lines, and this goes to one of the central points that bill highlighted, that government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth. you will see this on one of the charts. this view is held by 72% of all americans, 70% of democrats, 71% i'm sorry, 70% of -- 78% of independents, 71% of democrats. it is also striking that even

among opponents of legalization, there is great skepticism about the value of enforcing laws against marijuana and significant support for giving states that legitimize it leeway to carry out their experiment. it turns out that there are a lot of conservatives who not only mao slogans about states' rights but actually believe them who not only mouth slogans about statements that actually believe them. their skepticism about government efficacy begins their support for strong enforcement. on the direct question if the federal government should or should not enforce federal marijuana laws in states that have decided to allow its use, 57% of republicans and 52% of

conservatives said that the federal government should not enforce its own prohibition. bear in mind, these are groups that are opposed to the legalization of marijuana. the gap among republicans between the proportion supporting legalization in the proportion who nonetheless want the federal government to stand down in the face of legalization's efforts is 20 points. for conservatives, that gap is 15 points. it is also in a way nice to know that democrats and liberals are somewhat consistent on this as well -- there's no states' rights gap for democrats and liberals. the proportion of democrats who oppose legalization is 39%. and those who favor federal anti-marijuana -- enforcement of

marijuana laws in the state -- in the face of state action is 35%. this could have some very important consequences in the debate over what the federal government should do. democrats and liberals will not want the federal government to enforce these laws because they are sympathetic to legalization, but a lot of republicans and conservatives will not want the federal government to enforce these laws because they are

sympathetic to states' rights. there is a way in which the issue is a classic social issue. among religious groups, only two show clear opposition to the legalization of marijuana -- evangelical protestants, 59% opposed and hispanic catholics, 55% oppose. there were not enough evangelical hispanics in the group. if there were, one assumes they, too, would be opposed. the other groups would be flipped. religiously unaffiliated were overwhelmingly in favor of legalization by a margin of 76%. a similar and stronger pattern emerges based on attendance. those who attend once a week or more, 53% oppose legalization. again, this is a classic social issue in certain ways. white evangelicals in particular, it is a moral issue. 32% overall say smoking marijuana is immoral, but 55% of white evangelicals believe this. there is interesting evidence would -- in the discussion on the parental gap.

it appears from the data, there is no gap between parents and non-parents, but there is a difference between married parents and unmarried parents. i think anna might elaborate on that for us a little bit. just so we can move on to the discussion, i want to close this way -- the trend i think in favor of legalization is unlikely to be reversed radically, but there is a lot to play for on this issue. a great deal depends because of ambivalence on this about how these marijuana legalization experiments work. i think what we could see is for

a proponent to legalization, their fear should be prohibition in reverse. prohibition lost public support because of the unintended consequences. what people who support legalization will have to do is make sure that there are not on toward -- unintended consequences. a lot of times in this referendum, people have supported legalization for reasons somewhat ancillary to legalization. they feel that it is a waste of public resources or that it is spotty and unfair or that it could be taxed and provide a use of public revenue. whether these trends continue will depend a lot on the kinds of regulations that are imposed and if they are successful. and very much on how the federal government decides to deal with these states on this question. on all this hangs whether strong support for marijuana legalization among young americans indoors -- endures, and i have the capacity of many of you in this room to create a new majority on behalf of a

cause that was once supported by only a few -- if they have the capacity of many of you in this room to created a majority on behalf of a cause that was once supported by only if you. >> i urge you all to read the paper. it tells of the summary, there was a richness and surprises all through it. with gay marriage, if in a gay people especially gay couples, you probably support it. with marijuana, it is not who you know. it is what you do. if you smoke or use marijuana, you probably favor legalizing, but knowing people who smoke or use marijuana does not have an impact on it. all kinds of interesting things like that. here's a question about the future -- you obviously do not know the answer, but to get your sense of it, if i'm reading this paper right, you are saying the consensus has already shifted

far enough so there is no going back to a sustainable, top-down, one-size-fits-all policy of prohibition. is that a correct reading? >> i thought you were asking them. >> i will ask these two and bring the two of you in. is the consensus shattered to a point where we can no longer have a national policy of prohibition of marijuana? or does that depend on these outcomes? >> i would respond this way -- i think it is much more likely, at least for the next decade or so, that we are going to proceed on a state-by-state basis and that the congress of the united states would be loath to touch the legal status quo with any link the poll -- length of pole

you care to designate. i think it will be some states where the majority is close to permanent. there are others where that is not true, and we may very well be a patchwork nation on this issue for the next generation. to conclude, the idea of a dramatic change in the legal status of marijuana at the national level, i think, is no a conclusion that flows from this data. >> i do not think we are quite at a tipping point in the way i do think we are at a tipping point on gay marriage that what you see in national surveys are very close splits nationwide. i think there will be a lot of interest on the part of a lot of members of congress to try to avoid this issue for a while, while it works its way through. >> wonderful.

your experience with this issue is so granular. how does it sound to you? >> i had to go paperless, and i did not charge my ipad, so if it dies, i will just have to wing it. thank you for having me on the panel. but he is really fun to be part of the discussion after doing so much work on it over the past few years -- it is really fun to be part of the discussion. i want to basically expand upon a few of the things that you talked about. in the context of trying to understand why attitude toward legalization may be different toward -- an attitude toward gay

marriage or abortion. the first is personal experience. in a very transactional way, it is true that if you do a regression model on support for legalization, if whether or not you have used marijuana is a predictor of whether or not you support legalization. it really is that granular in terms of personal experience. what is interesting about why it matters for attitudinal change is that personal experience is hard to change. you cannot change some of his personal experience. so those people are not particularly personable if they

have a personal experience. we have seen changes in -- we call it general replacement -- generational replacement. if you have a cousin who smokes pot all day and never got off the couch and never got a job and then started doing other sorts of drugs, you will never convince the person that it is not addictive, even if it is not physically addictive, and you will not convince them that it is not a gateway drug, even though there is not a ton of evidence that it is a gateway drug. even though the landscape has shifted, it is hard to convince anybody who's had that kind of personal experience. on the other hand, if somebody themselves smoked pot in

college, is a productive member of society, and knows somebody who goes home after work and smokes it and goes to work fine the next day, they do not have a personal experience that suggests it has all these negative consequences. in many ways, that issue shapes whether or not you think it is moral. you can understand the lack of a parental gap in the same way. in the research we have done, we have not seen much of a gap in parental attitudes about this. for people who have kids under the age of 18. when you talk to kids, it is because they are realistic about their kids' access to alcohol, and alcohol is illegal for kids under the age of 21. if kids want it, they have almost unlimited access to alcohol, and they currently have unlimited access to marijuana. many parents do not think legalization will change that. many think it might make things better. trying to have a regulatory system in place that potentially puts some drug dealers out of business potentially makes it less available or more expensive to people under the age of 21. sums -- some parents say they would rather be higher than drive drunk. or if their kids do something,

they would rather do that than alcohol because it is more dangerous than truck driving. at any rate, the personal experience from a consultant to try to run campaigns, it is hard to think about influencing people's views on that issue. on the other hand, what we did find in our work and was part of our strategy in washington was that there are some people who are movable on the issue. that is what makes it different than abortion -- well, certainly abortion. it is very hard to convince someone who thinks that a fetus is a life or a living baby, whatever the language is -- you cannot say that it is not. that is just in the core values and beliefs that someone has. similarly, for someone who believes a woman has the right to choose what they do with their own body, it is hard to say that they do not. we spent all kinds of time trying to change people's views in the context of surveys and

the campaigns that were being run and had not been able to do it. what is happening is general -- generational replacement and more and more people coming out the change personal experience. this is where marijuana is a little different. it is to issues you both raise about the kind of arguments used for legalization, which is that the system is broken, it is not a good use for law enforcement resources, and it could be a source for potential revenue. i think that because there is the model of medical marijuana in some states, that is actually and you can see that states that have medical marijuana, these attitudes on legalization are a little bit different. people are more likely to support legalization. i would want to know that while it is true, knowing somebody who smokes does not predict support, knowing someone who uses medical marijuana does. you can see somebody actually get the benefits and it does not destroy their life, and civilization does not collapse. but it is a personal experience with someone using medical marijuana. those kinds of arguments tend to be female, blue-collar, lower and come individuals. we tried to see who was moving in response to ads, and we tracked over the course of campaign what was happening, and the movement is substantial. 5, 10, 15 points. it is really hard to move people on anything.

this country is so polarized ideologically and politically. my view is that part of why we moved people was a lot of common sense. people actually do not think prohibition is working. people are still smoking as much as they want to and when ever they want to and wherever they want to for the most part, and they generally think it is true that probably law-enforcement resources could be used for violent crime or for taking down gangs that are selling as opposed to dealing with individual or personal use or personal possession. but the other piece of it, which i think is fascinating, is that there are socially conservative arguments. i would urge you to look at the advertising in washington state. the first ad is a woman pouring coffee in a coffee shop saying that it is not that she likes it, acknowledging the moral ambiguity or that people do not think it is inherently a good thing the way marriage equality is or a woman's right to choose, and she is a middle-aged woman, and she says that it is not that she likes it, but the system is not working and goes on to talk about law enforcement and revenue.

in the case of washington, we also have law enforcement as our spokespeople. we had several prosecutors and state's attorneys, those sorts of alligators who also talked about how it is not a good use of law enforcement resources -- those sorts of validators. if you watch that, you might think we were trying to crack down on marijuana instead of legalizing it. 63% of people over 65 oppose legalization in your statistics. 44% supported it in washington. it is a lower number in colorado. over 65. in essence, it is inherently a conservative argument that we can control this and regulate this and stop crime and save money and make it harder for

kids to get it. it is essentially a conservative argument around legalization that is that powerful and persuasive to people. again, some people have had it have seen it happen in real life, and that is where the medical marijuana argument is so helpful. there was a woman who was a middle-aged suburban housewife who said that the light got turned back on in the park and they are taking the garbage out of parts because of the revenue from medical marijuana. there's all kinds of questions about revenue, but how much you can realistically raised and how you tax it, but regardless, that argument was powerful because she had personal experience with the medical marijuana revenue. where we go from here -- i agree that the national conversation matters a law -- lot. while it is true that people often disregard federal interference, it is the case

that if there were federal efforts -- you could easily see this going the wrong way at the federal government depending on how heavy-handed or how it is handled, but it could have a chilling effect, but on the other hand, if the federal government sort of basically just ignores it, which seems to be what is happening right now, then potentially the systems get put in place. does not make much difference. the sky is not all, some revenue, -- the sky does not fall, some revenue, and we see the kinds of things you were talking about. i also think how these things are implemented makes a big difference. how the ballot language is written and the statute language matters a lot about cultivation

and how you actually collect revenue. all of that is an unknown. there are some models from the medical marijuana dispenser is and some important lessons learned from that, and a lot of that has been incorporated, but we still do not know. i will tell you when we did the research in california that when we did focus groups and surveys in and around l.a. county where you have a lot of the medical marijuana dispensaries, a lot of stories about that going awry, you have very little impact on public opinion about legalization. two other things -- this is just in terms of public opinion, you could go -- there are lots of people who support regulation who do not want a tightly--- who support legalization who do not want a tightly regulated system.

you have to be careful in a political sense from the left, and the other piece is we do not know what will happen on the right. one of the things that is interesting and makes the issue different from there to quality and abortion is that there really is not opposition -- directly funded opposition. there is no mormon church funding terrible ballot initiatives, and there was very little spending. there was some spending in colorado and there was no spending in washington against it. it is hard to see where that money comes from, honestly,

unless there is someone who has a personal interest in it, but there is a lot of organized opposition to it, but that could change. that could evolve. i think that the future is very uncertain. while i agree that i do not see public opinion reversing itself in part because of personal experience and the experiences of the state and what that ends up doing to the electorate. i certainly think that the voters in washington and colorado saw the benefits of a regulated system, but that said, there's all these issues so we do not really know what the impact will be. >> fantastic. here is your unfair question. for the next five, 10 years, are we talking about a series of hard-fought battles or a shift in opinion which basically just leads to a wave of adoption of legalization almost regardless of what legal reasons -- legalization supporters do? >> i think it depends on how it is pursued. if it is pursued legislatively, it is a hard-fought battle. if they pursue it through ballot measures, we think the washington and colorado electorates' or model like the 2014 electorate, and both passed. you do not have a lot of pain opposition.

i'm not suggesting by any stretch that passing these initiatives is easy. it takes a lot of money and professional campaign and research done right. that being said -- >> you have been researching this. >> lots of research. without paid opposition, it is the legislative fight where you have legislators worry about getting reelected. >> do you want to take a guess on the next couple of legalization states? >> no, i would not. >> nice try, though. i was especially eager to have you here because you are new to the drug policy and marijuana debate.

what is happening is not just about marijuana, right? it is part of a cultural story about politics. talk about that, if you would. >> i want to start out thinking brookings for having me. it is probably a bush league move for me to admit that i'm a little bit in awe, but i'm a little bit in awe. this kind of talks -- ties in to what a lot of people have talked about today. the pro-legalization forces have framed the debate in terms of essentially conservative arguments in some respects. the question is -- we hear about the age cohort data, with regard to marijuana legalization and with marriage equality, and the question is -- is this some sort of shift? our younger voters more liberal? in a sense, you have more liberal positions being

embraced, and you say yes, but i think that is a little bit too simple. there are other issues kind of associated with social liberalism or libertarianism -- attitudes on pornography, prostitution, abortion, and a few other issues that really have not moved that much of the past few years. i think what we really see has to do with what i think is one of the most important factors of american politics that people do not like to talk about, and it is class. it is one of my meta theories about america, and someday i will write a book about it unless someone already has, that we define vice as something that lower class people do, and to change that, the pro- legalization people have framed these debates in terms of middle american values. in other words, gay marriage is as american as apple pie today. younger voters who are exposed to the arguments with in this frame are accepting it because it is within the american tradition. whereas things like pornography, prostitution, and abortion have not been framed as well in that particular way. this is longstanding.

you can go back to arguments over prohibition. alcohol would keep those immigrants in line. people like my great great grandfather somehow -- who managed to drink himself to death at the age of 40. i'm not sure how he did that. premarital sex had a very strong class aspect. so you go back and you ask why was marijuana, which seems to many of us to be such a harmless drug, essentially compared to alcohol, why was it illegal in the first place? the answer is it was brought to america by mexican-american farmworkers largely. it was perceived as being used by african americans, and it got treated as a street drug. you can look at letters -- there is a wonderful and horrific

letter from law enforcement officer in louisiana to herbert hoover in the 1920's, saying that this stuff is more dangerous than cocaine and opium from his first hand experience. these were the reports that were coming back. this was the way that it was framed to the silent generation and the greatest generation. there were a whole slew of similar -- marijuana -- "marijuana: we'd with roots from hal" was an actual movie -- "marijuana: weed with roots from hell." when you got down to the baby boomers, a to was a much closer split. the reason is what we have been talking about. baby boomers and pounded it in college. some of them continue to use it in their later life. if you have been around people who are high on drugs, it becomes immediately apparent that the last thing they are

going to do is go out and beat someone up. i would rather be with someone who is high on drugs than drunk >> marijuana. >> what did i say? marijuana. it looked at the data, -- if you look at the data, there are some wonderful charts in this pamphlet. you will see that the class angle is inverted. it is people with low incomes that are more likely to think it is a gateway drug, that are more likely to think it should not be legalized. it is even more striking when

you consider that people in the very lowest brackets, probably including a lot of college students, are partly skewing that of ford -- upward. the same thing with homosexuality. to someone born in the 1920's or 1930's, it was unthinkable. literally did not even know what homosexuality meant, talking to my grandparents. what is going on during that time? the face of the gay rights movement is throwing down union laborers and churches, it is gay pride parades, and you see this pick up start in 1996, and i do not think that it is accidental that that is when ellen degenerate's comes out of the closet -- when ellen degeneres comes out of the closet. that paved the way for "will and grace." it puts it strongly in the american tradition of families. we start seeing -- a part of

what happens, if you look before "ellen" people in media depicting homosexuality as an almost dirty, sexual event. things like "deliverance," "pulp fiction." when you start talking about "ellen" and "modern family" it is about as normal as you could imagine. compare this with some other issues. adultery and polygamy are still in single digits in most polls. adultery is bad because it is bad. polygamy is not something you think of your next-door neighbor doing. it is people in cults and weird places in utah.

it is the face of the polygamy movement. i have always thought that if three or four hollywood couples came out as pro-polygamy, you would probably see that number jumped up to 30% pretty quickly because the face of it changes. the way we think of it changes. if the argument became about family and so forth, the thinking of it changes. pornography -- this is a shock, but attitudes toward pornography have not changed over the past 12 years. 40% thought it was moral in 2001. -- 30% thought it was moral in 2001. 31% thought it was immoral in 2013. still not something that is rarely discussed in polite conversation. i think we get up to an age where people are married, the adultery factor plays into it, but it is not mainstream yet. prostitution is still something that you go to the bad part of town to engage in. and abortion is something that just -- it happens. it is not something you see a lot of celebrities admitting to.

it is not something that is celebrated. most americans see it as something that is a necessary evil. it asked about the morality of abortion, those numbers are flipped. to me, it is not about a liberal or libertarian cultural shift. it is the way of the cultural shift. it is a weed, all about the plucky -- today, it is "weeds," all about the plucky housewives in the suburban jungle. the real lesson is that it has to be framed in terms of law enforcement and family and money. things that appeal to the great american middle class. >> that is a brilliant observation. e.j. dionne has a habit of

framing it unfair headlines out of panel discussions, and i think yours would be "panelists as pot smoking is a bourgeois family value." [laughter] once an issue crosses over to the right side of the tracks, does that mean it is all over for prohibiting that thing? >> i think it is mostly all over. unless something comes up to push it back. even on alcohol -- i will just be real for you -- we are still a patchwork nation. there are a lot of dry counties in the south. oklahoma did not legalize liquor by the drink until 1996. you actually had to bring your bottle of booze to the bar and wrote your name on it, and a two

>> you wanted to say a word on this? >> first, sean has no need to feel awe. that was a great discussion. we will wonder how that happened. here's is an interesting thing. i totally agree with you that morale and he is often defined in class and racial terms. i don't think there is any doubt that a long time ago marijuana use was associated with latinos and african-americans and therefore disdained by large parts of white middle-class america. what is striking now is its crossover, and i don't think the data shows that marijuana legalization is quite as much of a class issue now as that analysis would suggest. our own numbers from pew -- there is not a whole lot of difference either by income or

by education, the two together often and decent measure of class. there is a bit of a gap but not an enormous class gap. i think the interesting question is when it crosses a certain point, the class disappears. maybe i can toss this to anna. just off anna's presentation, there are two things that struck us in our paper. people who want to legalize marijuana, probably under the tutelage of smart political consultants were very smart to legalize medical marijuana because there was an norma's difference in attitudes toward the goal marijuana versus marijuana for recreational use. one way to put it is ethical marijuana referenda are gateways to legalization referenda. that does appear to be the case. again, it goes back to do these

experiments work? there was a referendum in l.a. last week in connection with the mayoral election. which puts limits on the medical marijuana dispensaries. again, how these experiments of various kinds work, i think, will make an enormous difference. i'm curious on the class questionnaire >> i think you are making a different point, which is not that there are class differences now, but once an issue moves over to the middle class, then it becomes noncontroversial. >> i agree. i think that is right. >> in terms of numbers now, i do not see a great class split on this issue. >> it is not that it is turned upside-down, it is that the split has gone away, bill? >> i actually have many more questions than answers. so, i actually have a question for anna about data and a

question for sean about data, which i think will be in your wheel houses. i would first note that when you go back to prohibition, there was a medical exception written in. that was a very important safety valve. and a religious exemption. >> a lot of the illegal sale of sacramento wine. -- sacramental wine. [laughter] >> on many social issues, women are more tolerant or liberal. i would be interested in your interpretation on that. and for sean, carlin bowman of aei just e-mail me this morning the ucla matriculating freshman data. going all the way back to the

late 1960's. >> the question here is should marijuana be legalized. >> should marijuana be legalized. 1968 -- 26% of matriculating freshman said yes. 51% said yes in 1977. one decade after that it was down to 17%. >> the 1980s? >> 89. they lasted a couple of years ago, and i am sure that it issignificantly higher now. given your broad cultural views, how is one to interpret these dramatic swings among people of similar ages and backgrounds. these are matriculating college freshmen.

what is going on in your hunch? >> no problem. i do not know that i have a gender explanation for this, but men no more likely to smoke marijuana than women. once you control for the gender differences, it disappears. >> does that not just push it back a step? >> i do not have any hypotheses as to why men are more likely to do drugs, alcohol, everything than women. more likely to be alcoholics. i am sure that somebody from the psychology department or biology department could tell me why, but just in terms of the political consequence of it, it is also the case that i andy's initiative fights that women tend to be lower information voters and tend to gather information late. the most moveable voters are low information voters.

when you talk to women about revenue and the system being broken, tagging it to health care, use tend to see more movement among women and they start to look more like men. information has an impact. >> just to underscore the point from the survey, they cited a 54% of men but only 42% of women said they had ever tried marijuana. a big deal difference in the numbers. >> what do you think accounts for this yo-yo among the numbers? >> in 1986, relatively cold in texas where we were at the time, i was sitting in a football stadium with all of the middle school students from the northeast school district. nancy reagan is on a football field and we are all shouting at the top of our longest -- just say no, just say no. it was effective.

and it was a part of a general argument that was meant to counter the counter cultural depiction of marijuana. we were taught all of the same things. that this is a gateway drug. that this is a drug that is addictive. i think that that made an impact on high-school students going to college. they are using the drug now. the people today are supportive of marijuana. again, that kind of goes to the experience. you get to college and see the friends smoking up, glaze over. maybe that depiction was not entirely fair. if anything there is a class argument that is inverted today. there is a slightly distinct shift. if anything has gone to the point where upper class people are more supportive than lower class. not a huge distinction, but it is striking how much i expect

that has changed. if you had done this with income cohorts in the 1950's it would have been down at the bottom. >> you could argue that the last time you had a swing back in opinion among college freshmen toward prohibition it was because the wrong kind of people were doing it and we were worried about it, but now you have people thinking the right kind of people are smoking marijuana. >> i think that that was true in the '80s, though. i think that those numbers were great and interesting questions. i am not sure it had to do with the point and not sure that it explains those numbers. >> can i make one more point about class? you have to be careful when it comes to race. african-americans have a very different experience in the sense that you have the impact of the way it is in force and enforced and racial injustice around sentencing and

enforcement. african americans tend to be against legalization because of the crime in their communities and what happens to the young men. you can see that want to talk about how you have a set of drug policies that are enforced differently with different consequences, you have a very vocal grassroots set of african- american activists on this issue, but i think that there is a wrinkle on it that is different as it impacts the class argument. >> you could see more of this, a very smart opponent of legalization is making the argument that it is easy for wealthy white people in the upper class to talk about legalizing marijuana because they can handle it, but they will not be responsible for the places in society that cannot handle it. we have got a lot of amazing people in the audience. i will be asking for two or three at a time and we will try to get to as many as possible.

starting in the far back corner, a gentleman in the red tie and dark suit. please, by the way, everyone keep your questions short. we have got a lot of folks here. >> thank you. i am john with the national council on alcoholism and drug dependence. i'm curious, as we look at this as a political issue we have to deal with the facts of the issue as well. the fact of that is that the number two in treatment centers across america, alcohol is the number one drug being treated and no. 2 is marijuana. i am curious why that continues to be bantered about as that marijuana is not addictive. because it is. >> thank you. let's take another one from the back. same row, white shirt.

>> i am the u.s. correspondent from the austrian press. small question, are we only talking about marijuana, or did you also test opinions on hemp and cannabis? if so are these the same sort of people that have the same sort of attitude towards these two? sort of same the different drugs. second question, if you think the u.s. will continue with this state-by-state piecemeal approach toward legalization, what do you make of the experience in the netherlands, one of the european countries where it is legal under certain conditions, who have actually introduced a more severe regulations because they have seen a huge influx of people who only come to the netherlands simply to get high and behave in not particularly pleasant ways. >> one more from the back. how about the gentleman in a

blue shirt here? >> i would like to ask anna in particular how it is possible to frame persuasion for parents, in the same way the other question about actual addiction. i was a parent of young children in the 1980's and it was clear that a lot of parents my age and younger were willing to support the just say no campaign because they were afraid that something really bad would happen to their kids. how you frame an argument, how do proponents frame that argument to persuade parents? >> great set of questions. on the first one we do not have addiction experts here. it is not that kind of panel. it is an interesting question as to why it is perceived as fairly benign. is that what the polling shows?

>> the main way that we tested it was relative to alcohol and there is this perception that it is safer than alcohol, both in being less addictive and that you are not impaired in the same way when you are high from marijuana as you are when you are impaired by alcohol. people say that no one dies from being too high but you can certainly die from being too drunk. there is that, relative to alcohol. i am not a scientist and have not done the research on the addiction. my understanding is that no one is suggesting that you cannot abuse marijuana. they are suggesting that it is not the same as nicotine and narcotics. maybe someone in the audience can be more clear about it. no one is suggesting that you cannot abuse it, i think, including legal substances. >> a point that you make it is very important, the big take away of the paper, very few

people are viewing marijuana as a positive, good, or benign good thing. they see prohibition as a lesser of evils. >> greater of evils. >> right, legalization as the lesser of evils. >> first of all, just to be clear, at least in my own remarks i was careful to report on public sentiment. i do not recall reporting my own on the other question. the question that i was reporting on was not the addiction question, it was marijuana as gateway to harder drugs. there the sentiments are pretty clear. but we make no representations about the relationship between public opinion on this question and underlying medical data. that would be well beyond my competence. >> this is why results will matter. >> but that was only a piece of the question.

>> go ahead. >> i cannot remember the other. >> we have a lot on the table. >> i do not think that we in this paper can make claims as to addiction or whatever. the paper does not take stand on the issue whatsoever. we are trying to look at why the debate seems to have gone the way it has gone. we do not have any data on the gentleman's question about the fine distinctions between hemp, cannabiscannabis, and the like. i am not sure that the public makes the distinction. anna would know better than i. >> not talking from actual data, but in focus groups about whether it is addictive or if people think it is, it is that comparison to other kinds of drugs that people react to. i think that is what drives the comparison to other things in public opinion.

can i talk about kids? >> please. >> this is an important question, one of the bigger vulnerabilities around legalization, the impact on kids. there is an actual impact itself, though parents tend to be realistic, and do nothing that legalization will change access, in fact it might make it harder for kids to get access. the other piece that is harder to answer is that for parents, for people who think it is a gateway drug, they think it is a signal you're sending to kids that it is ok to do drugs. drugs that people perceive as much more harmful than marijuana. it is important for us to answer that question. the heavy emphasis on the kinds

of penalties associated with selling to kids under the age of 21 or 18. just like alcohol. the kinds of regulations in place around the background checks, try to create a system that is reassuring around what it can do to prevent younger people from smoking, because obviously the current system does not prevent younger people from smoking. it is about putting pieces in place with reassurance about it not being a sort of -- not a free-for-all to just do drugs but rather a way to regulate access. >> what i will volunteer as an answer to the question from the austrian gentleman about what you do about what if washington and colorado become the suppliers for the country because you cannot control the flow outside of their borders? that is the number one thing i think the federal government will be looking at in evaluating

the medical marijuana legalization in those states, number two will be accessed by children. it will be a disaster for proponents of legalization if they cannot control that. that is why i and many cases it is legalization proponents advocating reforms like medical marijuana in california. they want to see a regulatory system in place so that they do not throw the baby out with the bath water. another round of questions, we have plenty more. let's start with the front this time. there is a microphone coming. >> rick blake, strategic health resources, representing pharmaceutical firms interested in using cannabis for therapeutic uses. first of all, there are over 900 strains of cannabis. what are we talking about when we talk about medical marijuana? we actually do not know because

of fda regulations in terms of these clinical trials. we actually do not know we are doing. >> that is reassuring. >> [laughter] >> no, but this is in terms of medical uses. there is a lot of anecdotal evidence for the application of it in hiv patients. i am just saying that given that this is a public policy forum, do you see the shift in the landscape of political opinion in terms of changing some of the impacts on how we conduct our clinical trials and the growth that we could use in terms of cannabis in clinical trials in this nation because we are missing the boat, or at least we think so, in terms of the therapeutic uses of cannabis? >> thank you. the lady behind you had a question. >> alicia caldwell, associated

press. can you address the california models, the first to address medical marijuana, some describe it as more dispensaries and starbucks, which is astounding for most of us, and now we are stepping back to limit it to 135 dispensaries in los angeles. the supreme court ruled last month that states or cities can limit or zoned out dispensaries. they voted down proposition 19 and seemed to be taking that step back as washington and colorado took steps forward. >> thank you, let's get one from this gentleman in the front with the yellow and brown tie. >> my name is andrew stevenson. i'm with the consortium of social science associations. you mentioned nancy reagan. do you think that in society we have reached a point where it is too late for another nancy reagan? can there be another moral

movement? >> great question. impact on clinical trials, has anyone tested opinion on a research for medical marijuana? >> the vast majority in this country seem to support people having access to it. it would not surprise me that we would question whether or not you would be doing research. i would assume that the majority support that as well. the obama administration said basically at the beginning that they would not go after medical marijuana. i am not suggesting the obama administration was going to let nih do clinical trials, but certainly they were taking a step back relative to previous administrations. from the public opinion perspective i have to believe they would support during that research. >> i was going to say the same. the difference between medical marijuana views on legalization for recreational purposes is so

large that i expect there would be support. on the -- could there be a step back. you know, alcohol is the subject on which opinion in america has really gone up and down and up and down over a long time and it would not surprise me if we had that pattern to some degree on marijuana, which is to say that the movement for prohibition sort of went way back in our history, at times as suggested to a movement against immigrants because the irish were said to drink a lot, german immigrants were said to drink a lot. it actually divided the upper class in interesting way. we passed it, it failed, so it was repealed, but we have had a

return to semi-prohibition when we raised the drinking age all over the country. you know, there is now a movement among some folks in college town is to try to push it back on the grounds that 18- 21 year olds are drinking anyway and you are turning them into criminals. it would not shock me if there was some evidence on this. even though we say in our paper that we do not think it will ebb as much as it has in a recent past. >> i think that that analysis helps to frame the history of the california model. because -- recall what we found, number one, continuing ambivalence about marijuana. very few people think that it is a positive good. people can see pluses and

minuses. but second, this is driven by very practical considerations about enforcement, the cost of enforcement, and the unintended consequences of enforcement regimes. it does not surprise me at all to learn that there can also be unforeseen consequences of palmeiro legalization that for the same set of practical reasons might incline people to drawback without doubling all the way back. >> i would guess that what you will see in california is continued public movement toward favoring a general regime of legalization coupled with a regulatory movement to further restrict that. both of those things can happen at once and i suspect it will. >> i think you should be careful, if you promise to

indicate an attitudinal -- attitudinal shift. on the left and right, people involved in the current production do not like the line language, and we saw this reform before the for legalization, and it was not very well funded. as you know it is incredibly expensive to run initiative campaigns in california and running a funded campaign is basically a precondition for running these campaigns. third, 2010 could not have been a worse year for democrats. i want to be sure that we do not look at that reaction as a move away from legalization reaction. >> looking at the chance to go backwards, the nancy reagan example, the one example i can think of is tobacco.

i actually think of that is tied up with class. you watch "madmen." of course they would not want to make them illegal, everyone is smoking. in my generation very few of our friends grew up smoking because we had public health campaigns that seemed validated by life experiences, grandparents dying of emphysema. you have to go practically stand in the street to smoke a cigarette. that is tied up for class. if there were to be a major surge against marijuana, it would probably have to be that we legalize and we find out it causes a lot of cancer. we find out that it is addictive. i used the words not addictive. i think it is have it forming, it -- is habit forming, which is an important distinction.

and you know, sothing along those lines. we have seen a huge surge of people driving stoned. these externalities', you might see a push back on legalization. >> let's see if we can get in three or four more questions. a gentleman with a yellow tie who has been patient, a gentleman under the television who has been patient. >> thank you for your comment. office of the national drug controll policy -- i was just going to talk about tobacco and relating to the discussion to the public health issue. the question is with your research are any of you familiar with asking the public -- is legalization of marijuana and public health concern? i am curious if you have brought that up in any of your research. >> i am curious to ask you. [laughter] >> i cannot speak on that right now. >> what if we ask super nice? [laughter] >> there are a few more.

gentleman in the back, i will get to you whether you want it or not. >> i am brandon levy from the criminal justice policy foundation. is there any data, is this strictly limited to marijuana or do americans view prohibition in general -- are there americans that think we should move more to the european model, like portugal in 2001? >> great question. gentleman back there, i am coming to you because i always sit in the low visibility seats and hate never getting called. i am looking at a gentleman. raise your hand again? there you are. thank you. necktie, blue shirt. >> i am from the council on atmospheric affairs. you talk a bit, briefly, about support amongst hispanic respondents in this new poll. what possible explanation would you have for that?

>> excellent question. has anyone told marijuana as a public health problem perce? when framed that way, what do you get? >> i do not think so. at least, i have not. but when we asked people in an open-ended context about the significant concerns, i do not hear the public health concern. i hear the safety concern. people operating heavy equipment, performing operations or flying airplanes while they are high. are kids getting the wrong message. those of the kinds of things people mentioned. i am going to speculate that because people think anyone who wants to smoke is smoking, they do not see the legalization of it as something that is creating a new health concern. if there is one, it is there any >> she went a -- q and a lynch.ola

othero white and regulators talk about how americans [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] producereek on "q&a," and director of the newly released documentary. >> when did you first want to know more about angela davis? >> the truth? a funeral. i had been thinking about what my next subject would be. i had previously made a film about a run for president in