system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If 60%+ of US citizens want marijuana legalized, why hasn't it been?
gpt
Because the legislature of the United States is not structured such that it immediately responds to popular demands. And we should be glad it doesn't.

Who says 60+% of citizens want marijuana legalized? A magazine? A news paper? A television show? How did they arrive at that statistic? What was the sample size? Its demographic make-up? Is there bias? Did they check for citizenship?

At *best* such a statistic is an extrapolation based on a sample set. We don't make laws based on these. If those 60% of people want marijuana legalized, then they need to vote for the appropriate candidates during the appropriate election cycles. But even then it isn't so simple. Platform issues don't exist in a vacuum. A candidate who is in favor of legalizing marijuana may have other positions that are not popular. If the only candidate who wished to legalize marijuana also wanted to open the death penalty for crimes committed by minors, would you vote for him or her? It's a complex issue and candidates currently are not likely to make such promises. 60% is still very close to 50/50 and it's a polarizing issue. You're asking candidates to make a stance that could potentially rob them of half their votes. Not gonna happen yet.

And even then it still has to be drafted as a bill, voted on in both houses, and signed into law. It's an arduous process.

That said, some places do allow for public referendums, where specific issues *can* be submitted for popular vote, but that is a process in and of itself.

Regardless of how it gets there, it's a bit more complicated than: "Our US Weekly online poll says 60% of subscribers were in favor of the legalization of Marijuana" = *poof* Marijuana is magically legal everywhere, even the Moon.