Americans reject the idea of sanctioning physicians who prescribe or recommend the use of marijuana as a medicine to seriously ill patients by 68 percent to 24 percent, according to a recent poll conducted by the Lake Research polling firm in New York City.
At the same time, the public supports the right of physicians to prescribe marijuana by two-to-one, 60 percent to 30 percent.
“Like the results of the 1995 poll conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union demonstrating that 85 percent of voters favored legal access to medical marijuana for specific illnesses, this latest survey further emphasizes the overwhelming support among voters for medical marijuana,” said NORML’s Deputy Director, Allen St. Pierre.
The questions were worded as follows and asked in the following order:
- Should doctors be able to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes to seriously or terminally ill patients?
- As you may know, voters in two states recently passed laws allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to seriously ill patients for medical purposes. The federal government says that doctors who prescribe are violating federal law, and has threatened to prosecute them or suspend their license. Which comes closer to your views [rotate order of choices]: doctors should be able to prescribe marijuana for medical uses in states where it is allowed by law, or the federal government should penalize doctors who prescribe marijuana, regardless of whether state law allows them to?
Lake Research conducted the nationwide poll of 1,002 Americans between February 5-9 for the Lindesmith Center, a drug-law reform organization from New York City.
For more information, please contact Ethan Nadelmann of The Lindesmith Center at (212) 887-0695 or Celinda Lake of Lake Research at (202) 776-9066. For information on additional polls demonstrating strong support for medical marijuana, please contact Allen St. Pierre of NORML at (202) 483-5500 or visit NORML‘s website at: http://www.norml.org.