Race, Rhetoric, & Marijuana: Attitudinal Insights from a Survey Experiment

• In Event: Poster Session: Racial and Ethnic Politics & Security and MENA Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Racial and Ethnic Politics

Abstract

Legalizing marijuana is widely characterized by proponents as an attempt to correct the wrongs of continuing racial unfairness in the American criminal justice system. However, we are not aware of a prior study that directly evaluates the influence of pro- and anti-legalization arguments by elites that are framed explicitly in terms of the effects legalization would have on the African American community. In this paper, we draw on a novel survey-embedded experiment to assess the impact of elite racial appeals on respondents’ views and their willingness to reconsider their beliefs when confronted with countervailing information. In May 2023, we surveyed 2500 adults online using a sample generated by the Lucid Theorem platform. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of two versions of a short excerpt in which a witness before a congressional committee offers either pro-legalization or anti-legalization arguments or to a control condition in which they read an unrelated paragraph about electric vehicles. The experimental manipulation resulted in statistically significant differences across the three conditions on a number of dependent variables, including the respondent’s policy position on the extent of legalization (recreational use nationwide, medical use nationwide, illegal nationwide, or leave the decision to the states), opinions about the likely economic impact of legalization on Black neighborhoods, and opinions about a proposal to create a more equitable marijuana industry by setting aside dispensary licenses for individuals from underrepresented groups. The observed bivariate outcomes were corroborated through multivariate models, incorporating controls for factors such as education, generational cohorts, race, religion, partisanship, racial resentment, and encounters with police related to marijuana use. We also found differential treatment effects. The influence of elite rhetoric was also conditioned by race and religion, exhibiting more pronounced effects among Black Protestants compared to Blacks without religious affiliation. Contrary to previous literature suggesting that racial cues must be implicit rather than explicit to be effective, these experimental results demonstrate the nuanced influence of elite communication that directly addresses how African American communities would be affected by marijuana legalization policies.

Authors

• Yorkow Oppon-Acquah, Illinois College

• Stephen T. Mockabee, University of Cincinnati