Assessing Attitudes Toward Marijuana Legalization in Türkiye: An Analysis of Key Stakeholders

Despite global liberalization trends increasingly supporting the legalization of marijuana, attitudes in countries that maintain prohibition remain understudied. In Türkiye, following the introduction of regulations for hemp cultivation aimed at producing pharmaceutical active substances, understanding societal trends has become critical. This study examines the attitudes of four key stakeholder groups in Türkiye toward marijuana legalization using the harm perception literature, the Socio-Ecological Model, and the Theory of Planned Behavior.

A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with 300 participants equally distributed among substance users, their families, university students, and healthcare professionals using a structured questionnaire designed for this purpose.

A high level of opposition to legalization was observed across the entire sample (69.4%). Significant polarization was observed among the research groups (p < 0.001). This strong support among users may be interpreted within a self-interest framework. In contrast to Western literature, university students enrolled in health-related educational programs displayed the highest level of opposition. Ordinal logistic regression identified "perceived harm" as the strongest predictor of support (OR = 0.57, 95% CI [0.48, 0.68], p < 0.01), indicating that higher levels of perceived harm were associated with a lower likelihood of supporting legalization.

Despite global liberalization, deep-seated societal resistance persists in Türkiye, driven more by high harm perception than by evidence-based harm reduction paradigms. Policy discussions may benefit from considering the observed gap between perceived harm and empirically documented harm, while acknowledging the contextual and methodological limitations of the present study.