Nearly 25,000 respondents to an ongoing CNN Internet poll said they “support the use of marijuana for medical purposes.” Only four percent of respondents, less than 1,000 voters overall, said they opposed the drug’s use by seriously ill patients.
“Medical marijuana is clearly an issue where the American public is far ahead of the federal politicians,” NORML Executive Director R. Keith Stroup, Esq. said. “Legislators need to realize that legal access to medical marijuana is a politically safe issue that is supported among a majority of mainstream Americans across all political boundaries.”
Separate surveys conducted in 1997 by ABC News, The Luntz Research Company, CBS News, Lake Research, and a statewide Florida polling firm all showed that a clear majority of the public favored legalizing medical marijuana, Stroup added.
“The CNN poll is simply the latest,” he said.
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751. A breakdown of medical marijuana opinion polls conducted between 1995 and 1997 appears on NORML’s website at: www.norml.org.
