New York: NY: Nearly nine out of ten Americans — including 80 percent of self-identified Republicans — say that marijuana should be legal if its use is permitted by a physician, according to nationwide Fox News telephone poll of 1,010 registered voters. The poll was conducted under the direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) and possesses a margin of sampling error of ± 3 percentage points.
According to the poll, released last week, 85 percent of voters agree that adults ought to be allowed to use cannabis for therapeutic purposes if a physician authorizes it. The total marked an increase in support of four percent since Fox last polled the question in 2010 and is the highest level of public support for the issue ever reported in a scientific poll.
Despite the overwhelming public support for medical marijuana law reform, legislation in Congress to amend federal law to allow for its use in the 18 states which permit it — House Bill 689, the States’ Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act — only has 16 co-sponsors out of a total of 435 House members. The bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Health and to the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations — neither of which have scheduled the bill for a public hearing.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500, or Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org.