In 2014, 51 percent said marijuana should be legal. That's starkly changed, according to the same Gallup data. In 1977, the earliest year of polling data, 43 percent of Americans said gay and lesbian relations between consenting adults should not be legal, while 43 percent said they should be legal. In 1972, 81 percent of Americans said marijuana should be illegal - which suggests even more would favor the prohibition of more dangerous drugs like cocaine and heroin.

These stances were far removed from public opinion at the time, according to Gallup surveys on marijuana and gay and lesbian rights. In a 1972 letter to a local newspaper - which was recently resurfaced by Chelsea Summers at the New Republic - Sanders wrote that he supported abolishing 'all laws dealing with abortion, drugs, sexual behavior (adultery, homosexuality, etc.)' as part of his campaign for Vermont governor: Bernie Sanders of Vermont, was calling for many of these changes decades ago. But one Democratic candidate for president, Sen. Most Americans now support legally allowing gay and lesbian relationships, same-sex marriage, and personal marijuana use after decades of shifting public opinion.