Medical marijuana turns 15 years old – Has it reached its zenith?

Tomorrow, November 5th, 2011, marks the fifteenth anniversary of California’s passage of Prop 215, The Compassionate Use Act. The Act passed with 55.58% of the vote and remains the greatest achievement in marijuana law reform in the “War on Drugs” era.

NORML's Chart of Legalization Polls - data compiled by Russ Belville from various organizations asking a form of the question "Should marijuana be legalized in America?" (click graphic for full-sized version)

The successes of Prop 215 are well documented.  Two years following its passage, the rest of the West Coast and Alaska passed their own medical marijuana initiatives, with close to equal (OR 55%) or greater (WA 59% & AK 58%) support than California voters gave Prop 215.

The next decade saw twelve more states and the District of Columbia passing medical marijuana laws, with seven of those states doing so through the legislature.  Five of the citizen initiatives topped 60% support.  As states passed medical marijuana, some added more conditions for qualification, some legislated dispensary operations, and the most recent have instituted protections for the rights of patients to drive, work, have a home, get an organ transplant, and raise their kids.  In some ways, medical marijuana has improved in fifteen years.

In the 21st Century, medical marijuana support has flatlined and support for legalization of marijuana has almost doubled.

But a closer examination reveals a reform strategy that has stalled out and may even be in decline.  The last election saw Oregon fail to pass a dispensary measure for the second time with about the same support after six years.  South Dakota defeated medical marijuana with only 36% support, a drop of 12 points since they tried in 2006.  Arizona only barely passed medical marijuana with 50.13% support, when they had previously seen 65% in 1996 and 64% in a 1998 referendum (both 1990′s Arizona Acts were invalidated.)

Indeed, the national polls show a stalling on the medical marijuana issue as well.  When Gallup asked about support for medical marijuana and legalized marijuana in 1999, support was 73% and 29%, respectively.  We assume that someone who supports legalization for healthy people probably supports legalization for sick people, too, so that means 44% of those polled only support medical marijuana, not legalization.  But in the latest 2011 poll, legalization support has hit 50% while in the 2010 poll, medical support had dropped to 70%, down 8 points since 2005.  How has the support for legalization doubled (25% to 50%) since Prop 215 while support for making a medical exception to criminal marijuana has flatlined? (more…)

10 Years Ago Today: U.S. Government Admits Marijuana Is Medicine

Today marks the 10-year-anniversary of the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s landmark study on medical cannabis: Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base.

When the White House commissioned this report in response to the passage of California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996, many in the mainstream media, and many more lawmakers, were still skeptical about marijuana’s potential therapeutic value.  The publication of the Institute of Medicine’s findings — which concluded that cannabis possessed medicinal properties to control pain and nausea, and to stimulate appetite — provided the issue with long-overdue credibility, and began in earnest a political discourse that continues today.

So what have we learned in the ten years following the release of this groundbreaking study? As I write today in both Reason Magazine online and in The Hill.com’s influential Congress blog (post your feedback here):

In Ten Years, Medical Marijuana Has Gone From Fringe to Mainstream — So Why Is It Still Against The Law?
via The Hill.com

We’ve affirmed that the use of medical marijuana can be used remarkably safely and effectively.

We’ve learned that cannabis possesses therapeutic value beyond symptom management, and that it can, in some cases, moderate disease progression.

We’ve discovered alternative methods to safely, effectively, and rapidly deliver marijuana’s therapeutic properties to patients that don’t involve smoking.

We’ve learned that restricted patient access to medicinal cannabis will not necessarily result in higher use rates among young people or among the general public.

And finally we’ve learned — much to the chagrin of medical marijuana opponents — that in fact the sky will not fall if we grant patients the right to use it.

Today, the only practical impediments prohibiting the legal use of medical marijuana are political ones.  The Obama administration should heed the advice of the Institute of Medicine and initiate clinical trials regarding the medical use of cannabis, and it should remove federal legal restrictions so that states can regulate marijuana like other accepted prescription medicines.