The Population

Our population of interest was Westlake High School students. This is the best group of people
to survey because students are less accustomed to surveys that have hidden biases, and they are more
likely to be swayed into one direction or another. Also, students are more open to both ideas and
sometimes depend on the wording of the questions instead of their own opinion to answer the
survey. We didnt want to target one specific group of high school kids because at certain ages, some
teenagers may be more aware of such potential biases and surveys, while others may not. Also, if all
the students surveyed were for example, honors students, they might all respond similarly. By taking
samples from the entire student population, we more easily able to see how, in general, youths respond
to such questions. Our sampling procedure was as follows: we gathered a list of teachers in Westlake,
assigned each a two-digit number, then randomly selected 8 teachers.

Control/Neutral Question
Should marijuana be legalized? This question resulted in an almost 50-50 split, which was
what we had originally anticipated. People who supported marijuana chose yes, and those who didnt
chose no.

Positive (Pro-Legalization) Question

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron calculated that if marijuana were legalized, the government
would save $7.7 billion annually in law-enforcement costs, and it could bring in an additional $6.2 billion
a year if pot were taxed at rates similar to alcohol and tobacco. Thats $13.9 billion per year that could,
and should, be earmarked to prevention campaigns, as well as treatment for those who become
addicted. Do you think marijuana should be legalized? With this question, we achieved a percentage of
yess that was 31% more than the nos.

Negative (Anti-Legalization) Question

Marijuana is known to impact memory, and, for some kids, can trigger latent mental illnesses
like schizophrenia. It can also impair short-term memory, cause slow reaction time, increase the risk of
heart attack, and result in birth defects, strokes, and damage to the respiratory system and
brain. Should such a detrimental drug be legalized? For the negative question, the percentage of nos
was 18% more than the yess, which was a weaker response than anticipated, as compared to the
neutral and positive questions.

Summary
Our positive (pro-legalization) question was: Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron calculated that
if marijuana were legalized, the government would save $7.7 billion annually in law-enforcement costs,
and it could bring in an additional $6.2 billion a year if pot were taxed at rates similar to alcohol and
tobacco. Thats $13.9 billion per year that could, and should, be earmarked to prevention campaigns, as
well as treatment for those who become addicted. Do you think marijuana should be legalized? Our
negative (against-legalization) question was: Marijuana is known to impact memory, and, for some
kids, can trigger latent mental illnesses like schizophrenia. It can also impair short-term memory, cause
slow reaction time, increase the risk of heart attack, and result in birth defects, strokes, and damage to
the respiratory system and brain. Should such a detrimental drug be legalized? The non-biased
question was: Should marijuana be legalized. Our survey questions addressed the issue of bias by
appealing to our subjects sense of sympathy (the negative question about it being harmful), sense of
rationality (the positive question that justified legalization with the possibilities economic benefit), or
simply their opinion on the subject matter (with the neutral question).

Conclusion
We were successful in creating a bias- for the positive question, the percentage of yess was
31% more than the nos. For the negative question, the percentage of nos was 18% more than the
yess. The neutral question was practically 50-50. We believe our sampling procedure was effective, and
though there were some initial problems with the seniors responses (some, but not all, took the survey
seriously), we were able to achieve our predicted distributions with our variation of subjects. If we were
to do it differently, we could have asked adults instead, as they might take the survey more seriously
than some of the subjects we approached. This project taught us that biases actually do have an effect
on those surveyed-- thus, if it is the intention of the surveyor, it will be effective, but if the surveyor
would like accurate responses, he or she must make sure that their wording is neutralized and will not
influence the subjects response.