Americans want legal weed now more than ever

Americans are more in favor of legalizing marijuana now than ever before.

A series of recent polls ahead of Election Day show the trend toward favoring legalization has only grown since the last time millions of Americans went to the polls in 2014.

A Public Religion Research Institute poll released on Tuesday shows 63 percent of those surveyed support legalization and 31 percent of those people "strongly" favor it.

Those results seem to back up other recent polls.

Just days ago, Gallup released a survey showing that 60 percent of those polled favor legal marijuana. And a Pew Research Institute survey earlier this month pegged the number in favor of legalization at 57 percent.

Millennials in Pew's survey supported legalization more than any other generational group, at 71 percent.

Gallup has never recorded such strong support for marijuana legalization.

In 1969, the first time Gallup asked survey responders whether they favored legal weed, just 12 percent said yes.

That number more than doubled toward the end of the 1970s, but dipped again in the next decade. Support didn't climb over 30 percent until the turn of the century.

Since then, Gallup has recorded a steady increase in American support for marijuana legalization, which couldn't come at a better time for advocates of legal marijuana.

Voters will no doubt be focused on selecting Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for president when they head to the polls in November, but many will also get to decide whether to legalize recreational or medical marijuana in their states.

Voters in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada will all vote on whether to make recreational marijuana legal.

Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota voters will decide whether to legalize medical marijuana.

In California, the measure is favored by around 63 percent of voters. A vote along those lines would legalize marijuana along the entire Pacific coast of the mainland United States.

Arizonans lean in the other direction. Only 39 percent support legalization, while more than 52 percent don't want it to happen, according to the Phoenix New Times.

The other states up for a vote on recreational marijuana seem to be more of a toss-up.