Young, Wild, and Free?

I was looking at an article about support of the legalization of marijuana, which my junior theme is about, and I came across some peculiar statistics. This 2011 Gallup article looked at the demographics of one of their surveys, and the results were more drastic than expected. For instance, "Liberals are twice as likely as conservatives to favor legalizing marijuana." Sure, I expected Liberals to be more, well, liberal with such a thing, but by that much? Really?

Perhaps the second most shocking piece of information, and not too far behind first, was the age differences. Disapproval of legalization increased with age. 18 to 29 year-olds were the second most approving group with 62% approval, right behind Liberals. and even more shockingly, 50-64 year-olds were below 50%, and the 65 and older group were the lowest at just 31% approval. Why does this seem so shocking, you might ask. Well, this was the generation that was supposed to part of the largest druggy movement/population ever. With things like Woodstock, long hair and tie-dyed shirts, this age group should be totally for such legalization, right?

Well, apparently not. It seems that some people aren't young forever, and they grow up and their opinions change. And maybe that age group wasn't as druggy after all, and our perceptions are blurred by a few grossly enlarged events. But still, whatever laws might be placed in the future, and whatever sways in public opinion might be ahead of us, we can see now, that maybe the younger people will always be this way. The free, the careless; they might always be a bit more ahead of their time. They certainly are newer.