Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana Home Cultivation Amid Concerns About Pesticide-Tainted Products, Poll Shows
- 61% of U.S. adults support legalizing home cultivation of marijuana, indicating broad support beyond just current cannabis consumers.
- 72% of cannabis consumers are very concerned about harmful pesticides in products, with 65% more likely to grow their own due to media coverage of tainted marijuana.
- 67% of cannabis consumers prefer pesticide-free cannabis even if it has lower THC levels, reflecting increased demand for safer, trusted products.
- Additional findings show 37% would consider gifting marijuana seeds on 4/20, and Gallup data reveals 64% support legalization with 15% of adults reporting cannabis use, highlighting ongoing shifts in public opinion and consumption trends.
Three out of five Americans say it should be legal for people to grow their own marijuana plants at home, according to a new poll that also shows cannabis consumers are broadly concerned about harmful pesticides in the products they consume.
The survey, which was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Royal Queen Seeds (RQS), found that 61 percent of U.S. adults back legalizing marijuana home cultivation, which the company points out is greater than 43 percent of Americans who say they have consumed cannabis—showing that support for the freedom extends beyond those who want to exercise it for themselves.
At the same time, however, 72 percent of consumers are very concerned about pesticides in their cannabis products, while 65 percent say that media coverage of tainted marijuana has made them more likely to want to grow their own instead of buying it.
The poll also found that two-thirds of cannabis consumers (67 percent) would choose cannabis grown without pesticides even if it had lower THC than products that did use agrochemicals.
“Consumers today are more informed and more intentional about what they put into their bodies,” Shai Ramsahai, president of RQS, said in a press release. “Blindly buying products just because of a high THC percentage is a fading trend. People want cannabis they can trust, and many are turning to home cultivation to take control over quality and safety.”
Other findings of the new poll include:
The poll involved interviews from March 17-19 with 2,017 U.S. adults aged 21 and older, among whom 851 have consumed cannabis, and has a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points.
The survey is the latest in a series of polls commissioned by RQS.
Last year, the company found that half of U.S. marijuana consumers said they expected to consume more cannabis under the Trump administration than they have before.
In 2024, the RQS survey showed that 37 percent of respondents also said that they would consider buying marijuana seeds as a gift for someone else on 4/20.
Separately, a Gallup poll published late last year found that 64 percent of Americans now support legalizing marijuana.
Regardless of public opinion on the policy of legalization, Gallup also released data in 2024 showing that 15 percent of U.S. adults reported that they smoke cannabis, which is more than the 11 percent of who told the polling firm that they have smoked any cigarettes in the past week.
Rates of marijuana use are nearly the same in states that have legalized versus those that maintain prohibition, which suggests that “criminalization does little to curtail its use,” another Gallup survey found that year.