I think we are on this precipice, teetering on this little thing where we have no problem discussing how bad marijuana is but don't attack alcohol, because that's a part of our culture. Well you know what, people get behind the wheel drinking everyday and kill people. I'd much rather smell weed on the side of the street than liquor on someone's breath trying to talk to me. So I think we can be hypocrites about it.
According to Gallup polling, Americans who support legalizing marijuana has jumped from 12% in 1969 to 64% in 2025. People who admit to having used marijuana has also moved from just 4% in 1969 to 47% in 2024. You rarely get two in three Americans to agree on anything, but they do in fact agree that marijuana should be legal, Enten said.
When Connecticut legalized recreational marijuana in 2021, the state's lieutenant governor, Susan Bysiewicz, boasted that the new law was "crafted to repair the wounds left by the War on Drugs." The move followed the same rationale that had motivated legalization in 18 other states: fewer resources exhausted on policing a drug that legalization advocates view as largely unharmful, fewer lives derailed by what they argue to be excessive lockups.
Gallup has tracked Americans' drinking habits since 1939, and its latest poll finds that Americans' self-reported drinking has dropped to 54%, the lowest percentage in 90 years. The late 1970s saw the highest consumption habits, with 71% of Americans saying that they drank alcohol. In more recent years, the rate dropped from 62% in 2023 to 58% in 2024, and is now down to 54% in 2025.
Anutin, 58, is heir to Sino-Thai, one of Thailand's largest construction firms, where he served as president before entering politics in the 1990s. His political career has spanned nearly 30 years. Anutin has served in a variety of high-profile positions, including as deputy prime minister for the past six years, health minister from 2019 to 2023, and then as interior minister until this year. His time as health minister coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.