[another-dave]

There are a lot of issues that people are indifferent on though — they agree with it in principle, but it's not enough to swing their vote.

It feels like they'd need to poll something like: "You broadly think your representative has voted in favour of your issues, but they have also voted to repeal same-sex marriage. Would you reelect them?"

If you have a large vocal minority against something, politicians start to assess an appeasement strategy. "How many votes would it lose me to get these people onside?"

As a completely different example, I don't remember any polling in the UK in favour of the Brexit referendum before David Cameron called it, he was definitely playing to the vocal minority. & though polls show most people wish we had remained, it doesn't seem to be enough of an issue to sway people away from voting for Boris Johnson & the Tories generally.

[RobertKerans]

The Brexit example is quite good I think, as it illustrates the horse-trading inherent in these things. It was a promise to a wing of the Tory party in exchange for concessions on other issues. From the polls I can remember it wasn't something the vast majority cared about, it consistently came very far down the list of important issues facing the UK. But when the promise was activated, those with political power who were opposed to EU membership managed to make it into an issue, and I think drugs are an area of policy where it is easy to do the same thing, to create and energise a base that had no great feelings either way. It helps enormously that drugs are a taboo subject, and that usage is associated with groups of people that are easily painted as undesirables.