In early October, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the
Bush administration's appeal of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court
ruling that allows doctors to freely discuss medicinal marijuana
with their patients without penalty. While the case does not
legalize medicinal marijuana, it paves the way for physicians to
discuss it as a treatment option. Currently, physician
prescriptions or recommendations for marijuana are reportedly legal
in 9 states and 35 states acknowledge the drug's medicinal
value.
How do Americans feel about the legalization of marijuana for
medical purposes? A November Gallup Poll* shows that three-quarters
(75%) of the nation's adults are in favor of allowing doctors to
prescribe marijuana to patients in order to ease pain and
suffering. Twenty-two percent of Americans oppose such an action.
The level of support for medicinal marijuana is significantly
higher than that for making "the use of marijuana legal" more
generally, at just 34%.
While there is widespread support for the idea of legalizing
marijuana for medicinal purposes, that support varies across
certain demographic categories. Adults aged 65 and older (62%) are
less likely than those under 65 (77%) to favor its use. Differences
also emerge based on educational attainment -- those with at least
some college education are more in favor of legalizing marijuana
for medicinal purposes than those with a high school education or
less (79% vs. 68%, respectively).
Ideology also appears to relate to opinion on the issue --
self-classified liberals (89%) are 25 percentage points more likely
than self-described conservatives (64%) to favor making marijuana
legally available for doctors to prescribe.
Bottom Line
While Americans are mostly in favor of legalizing marijuana for
medicinal purposes, most of them draw the line when it comes to
legalizing marijuana outright. The survey indicates that a majority
of Americans say that there is a place for marijuana's medical use,
but seem less inclined to support it for recreational purposes.
*Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,004
national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 10-12, 2003. For
results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say
with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is
±3 percentage points.
