Medical Marijuana Poll 1997. Lake Research. Feb 5-9, 1997.
Americans Overwhelmingly Favor Allowing Doctors to Prescribe Marijuana for Medicinal Use, Oppose Federal Intervention
Lake Research conducted a nationwide poll of 1,002 Americans between February 5-9, 1997 for the Lindesmith Center. The survey was fielded by International Communications Research as part of the Excel Poll.
By a 2 to 1 margin, American voters favor allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes for seriously or terminally ill patients (60 percent favor, 30 percent oppose, nine percent don't know, and one percent refused to answer).
Furthermore, Americans believe that doctors in states like Arizona and California, which have passed medical marijuana initiatives, should be able to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes, and they don't believe the federal government should penalize those doctors for prescribing marijuana (68 percent say doctors should be able to prescribe, 24 percent say federal government should penalize those doctors, two percent don't agree with either notion, four percent are unsure, and one percent refused to answer).
The questions were worded as follows and were 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?
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