Americans Support for Legalizing Marijuana - All Time High in 2017

Americans continue to warm to legalizing marijuana, with 64% now saying its use should be made legal. This is the highest level of public support Gallup (News) has found for the proposal in nearly a half-century of measurement. 

article by by Justin McCarthy for Gallup News | Oct 25, 2017                                                
The latest figure, based on an Oct. 5-11 Gallup poll, follows shifts in the U.S. legal landscape regarding marijuana since Gallup's 2016 measure. While still illegal at the federal level, the issue was featured on a number of state ballot initiatives in 2016, and with eight states and the District of Columbia having fully legalized marijuana, more than one in five Americans live in a state where they can legally enjoy use of the drug.

Gallup first asked national adults about their views on the topic in 1969, when 12% supported legalization. Support had more than doubled by the end of the next decade but changed little throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By 2001, however, about a third of Americans favored legalizing marijuana, and support has steadily increased since. A majority of Americans have consistently supported legalizing marijuana since 2013.

The trajectory of Americans' views on marijuana is similar to that of their views on same-sex marriage over the past couple of decades. On both issues, about a quarter supported legalization in the late 1990s, and today 64% favor each. Over the past several years, Gallup has found that Americans have become more liberal on a variety of social issues.

Majority of Republicans Now Support Legalizing Marijuana
Democrats and independents have historically been much more likely than Republicans to say marijuana should be legalized. In 2009, Democrats were the first partisan group to see majority support for legalization, followed by independents in 2010.

This year for the first time, a majority of Republicans express support for legalizing marijuana; the current 51% is up nine percentage points from last year.

Bottom Line
As efforts to legalize marijuana at the state level continue to yield successes, public opinion, too, has shifted toward greater support. The Department of Justice under the current Republican administration has been perceived as hostile to state-level legalization. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions could find himself out of step with his own party if the current trends continue. Rank-and-file Republicans' views on the issue have evolved just as Democrats' and independents' have, though Republicans remain least likely to support legalizing pot.

SURVEY METHODS
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Oct. 5-11, 2017, with a random sample of 1,028 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.
Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.
View survey methodology, complete question responses and trends.
Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/221018/record-high-support-legalizing-marijuana.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles

Fund More Research for Medical Marijuana as a Solution to the Opioid Crisis - Online Petition

There’s a petition taking off on Change.org, and I think you might be interested in signing it, I did. Jim 

Petitioning National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health: Fund More Research for Medical Marijuana as a Solution to the Opioid Crisis

Sign The Dr. Oz Show’s petition As a doctor, one of my primary responsibilities is to alleviate pain, and I’m always on the lookout for new and more effective treatments. For years, we’ve used opiates to treat pain and today we are in the throes of an addiction epidemic. Each day the opioid crisis sends over 1000 people to the emergency room and takes 91 lives. Doctors need new pain medications that don't have the ability to kill like opioids do. I believe medical cannabis could do just that and I’m calling on the federal government to fund the research we need to prove it. Outdated beliefs and policies have prevented our country from funding medical cannabis research but the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has reviewed other scientific research and found evidence that patients treated with cannabis or cannabinoids were more likely to experience a significant reduction in pain symptoms. Yet the government still says cannabis has no proven medical value.   About twenty years ago, my colleagues and I were sold a bill of goods on a new strategy to treat people suffering from chronic pain. Opioids were the answer, and we were led to believe that not only were they effective, but that they couldn't be addictive. Unfortunately, it took a national emergency to realize that the quadrupling of opioid prescriptions that resulted from these teachings was actually a problem. Not only are opioids in fact highly addictive,  according to the CDC, there is actually little evidence that they are even effective at relieving chronic pain. I was duped.  It's hard to admit it, but I have to face the facts. To make sure it never happens again, I’m asking you to sign this petition. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds much of our nation’s medical research, allots only $111 million dollars to cannabis research.  This sounds like a large number, but it represents a mere 0.3 percent of NIH's total spending on research and is only 0.1 percent of the cost of the opioid epidemic. This is a drop in the bucket for something that experts believe could have the potential to help in our fight against the number one killer of adults under 50. Studies already suggest that states with medical cannabis laws have a 25 percent lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate compared with states without medical cannabis laws.   Almost half of opioid deaths are due to the overdose of prescription drugs. While heroin is responsible for much of the other half, research suggests that 4 out of 5 heroin users started with prescription drugs. I have traveled around the country and met countless families who needlessly lost their sons and daughters, husbands and wives to addiction. In addition to the obvious emotional costs of this epidemic, the financial burden is exorbitant. The opioid crisis costs our economy over $78 billion per year.     So please join me in calling on NIH to quadruple its spending on this important research (only 50 percent of opiate epidemic costs) and sign this petition. Sign The Dr. Oz Show’s petition The person (or organization) who started this petition is not affiliated with Change.org. Change.org did not create this petition and is not responsible for the petition content.

Research Shows Medicare Spending on Prescription Drugs Has Declined In States Where Medical Marijuana is Legal

Can Marijuana Help Address the U.S. Health Spending Crisis?

The rising cost of prescription drugs is a bitter pill to swallow for many Americans (and their insurers — Medicare included). So this comes as a bit of good news: In states that have legalized marijuana for medicinal use, spending on prescription drugs has declined.

article by Krystal Steinmetz for MoneyTalksNews | July 11, 2016

That’s according to new research from a University of Georgia father-daughter duo, which was recently published in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs.

The study analyzed prescription drug data from Medicare Part D — Medicare’s prescription benefits program — from 2010 to 2013. It focused on nine medical conditions for which marijuana could serve as an alternative treatment, including anxiety, depression, glaucoma, nausea, pain, psychosis, seizures, sleep disorders and spasticity.

After crunching the numbers, the researchers concluded that marijuana use saved Medicare Part D about $165.2 million in 2013 — as many people chose weed instead of prescription drugs to help them with their medical conditions. Marijuana for medical and/or recreational use was legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia at the time of the study. Now it’s legal in 25 states plus the District of Columbia.

The results of the study by professor W. David Bradford and graduate student Ashley Bradford suggest that if all 50 states had medical marijuana provisions in place in 2013, then Medicare Part D could have pocketed about $468 million in total savings that year, as more people chose marijuana, instead of pharmaceuticals, to treat their health ailments.

“When marijuana becomes a medical option for people, then their use of prescription drugs falls,” said David Bradford, a professor of public administration and policy at UGA and co-author of the study with his daughter Ashley Bradford, a graduate student in public administration and policy. “We think that the only plausible mechanism is that people are shifting at least in part toward using marijuana as medicine.”

Although the $468 million in potential savings in 2013 represents just a half a percent of Medicare Part D’s total expenditures, Bradford says it’s still significant.

“We wouldn’t say that saving money is the reason to adopt this. But it should be part of the discussion,” Bradford said in an interview with NPR. “We think it’s pretty good indirect evidence that people are using this as medication.”

The UGA study is the first of its kind to examine whether legalizing marijuana could help curb rising public health costs and even change doctors’ clinical practice, says NPR.

Despite the change in state laws governing marijuana’s use and sale, the drug is still illegal under federal law, which classifies it as a Schedule I drug along with heroin. Among other things, that means doctors can write patients a note to get weed from a dispensary, but they can’t actually prescribe it. Marijuana also has to be paid for out-of-pocket.

The next study the researchers are planning is designed to analyze marijuana’s potential impact on Medicaid.

Check out MoneyTalksNews  post on retirees and pot: “Forget Florida: Retirees Opting for Pot-Friendly States.”

http://www.moneytalksnews.com/can-marijuana-help-address-the-health-spending-crisis/

Illinois Cook County Judge Says Medical Marijuana Delay Can Continue

CHICAGO (AP) — March 20, 2015 - A Cook County judge ruled Thursday that a temporary restraining order delaying a medical marijuana cultivation center in northeastern Illinois can remain in place.

Judge Kathleen Kennedy also ordered the plaintiff to post a bond of $200,000 to compensate for any harm caused if delays are later found to be improperly granted.

Cresco Labs was the top-scoring company and the winner in the permit competition in a district that includes Ford, Iroquois and Kankakee counties. But the plaintiff, a company called PM Rx, claims the Illinois Department of Agriculture broke its own rules when awarding permits and it should have been the winner.

The case, one of at least four legal proceedings entangling Illinois’ marijuana program, involves questions about a secret selection process and whether unsuccessful businesses will ever know why their applications failed to win permits.

The Illinois medical cannabis law shields the applications from public disclosure, which has kept PM Rx unable to directly cite problems with the government’s evaluation of applications. But Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office itself noted problems in the process under his predecessor that had created “a risk of substantial and costly litigation” to the state when winners were announced Feb. 2.

Citing the governor’s concerns, PM Rx persuaded the judge to pause the process. PM Rx also noted the state’s troubles completing FBI background checks of applicants and called into question the background of Cresco’s lead grower. PM Rx raised doubts about whether Cresco, which won three permits, had enough money to get its business off the ground.

PM Rx CEO Andrew James said with Thursday’s ruling everyone is closer to seeing the process the state used in picking growers.

James said the company’s lawyers will file a notice of the documents they expect the state to produce and a notice to depose former Gov. Pat Quinn and others involved in the process, including former Agriculture Director Bob Flider, former State Police Director Hiram Grau and the principals of Cresco Labs.

“Unlike the State, we firmly believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant for this selection process,” James said in a statement.

Attorneys for the Department of Agriculture and Cresco refuted the claims, saying Cresco has met all of its financial obligations and passed background checks.

“They argue we’re searching for financing. So what? We’re allowed to,” said Cresco Labs’ attorney Steve Levy in court Wednesday. Levy had argued his client wasn’t properly notified about the lawsuit. He said Cresco Labs wasn’t able to argue its case against the temporary restraining order granted two weeks ago. Kennedy’s order halted the Illinois Department of Agriculture from issuing a permit to Cresco for its Kankakee operation.

In allowing the order to stand Thursday, the judge noted that Cresco will be able to make its arguments as the case progresses.

Separately Thursday, the Illinois Appellate Court denied the Department of Agriculture’s appeal of the same temporary restraining order.

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