I will try to answer from my limited point of view. IMHO, Mexicans simply do not see marijuana users the same way Americans do. For Americans, marijuana seems

I will try to answer from my limited point of view. IMHO, Mexicans simply do not see marijuana users the same way Americans do. For Americans, marijuana seems like a soft drug young people often try and later grow out of it. Sure, there is this argument about the gateway drug and all that, but at the end of day many conservative boomers did have first or second hand experience in the 1960's. So it's not a big deal. Not so for the Mexican people. Specially in the urban population (which I suspect is overrepresented in the poll) the term "mariguano", describes not just a cannabis user, but a deviant user of any low cost drugs. It is low status, so it is easy to demonize, much like "crack-head" or "meth-head" in the US. So, people is afraid of mariguanos. They do marginal jobs, if at all, then some end up resorting to petty crime to fund their habit. There is also a correlation between drug use and violent crime. I personally think that deviant types will display both higher use rates and higher violence rates than the general population, but most people assume causation right away. It also does not help that the Catholic Church has taken a very clear cut stance about that. That is not the root cause of people feelings; if the Church took a similar stance against alcohol abuse, literally no one but a handful of old ladies would listen to them. But the Church (as a political agent) is scoring cheap points on the Supreme Court now, and there is very little cost to do that, so they keep doing it. Therefore, the results of the poll reflect a feeling from the Mexican people: that the government is failing to protect them - again, - and betraying their interest - also again.