Interesting Facts and Statistics

First law that legalized medical marijuana

In 1978, the federal government was forced to allow some patients access to medical marijuana after a “medical necessity” defense was recognized in court, creating the Investigational New Drug (IND) compassionate access program.

Medical marijuana by states

Thirteen states have medical marijuana research laws, and only fifteen states have never had a positive medical marijuana law.

Since 1996, fifteen states have enacted laws that allow the cultivation of medical marijuana and protect patients who possess medical marijuana (with their doctors’ recommendations or certifications) from criminal penalties: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Ten of the thirteen did so through the initiative process. Hawaii’s law was enacted by the legislature and signed by the governor in 2000; Vermont’s was enacted by the legislature and passed into law without the governor’s signature in 2004; Rhode Island’s was passed into law over the governor’s veto in 2006; New Mexico’s legislation was signed into law by Governor Bill Richardson in 2007; and on January 18, 2010, Governor Jon Corzine signed New Jersey’s bill into law. In mid-December 2009, the United States Senate passed an omnibus appropriations bill that removed restrictions on the implementation of a marijuana initiative passed by District of Columbia voters in 1998; President Obama subsequently signed this bill into law on December 13, 2009.
Article about states have medical marijuana legalized.

Public Support for Medical Marijuana Legalization
Medical marijuana is one of the most widely supported issues in drug policy reform.
According to a 1999 Gallup poll, 73% of Americans are in favor of “making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering.”

Assuming that those who use cannabis daily are medical users, the application of these percentages to comparable 2010 U.S. Census categories for those age 18 to 55 would calculate estimated 5 million medical marijuana patients in the U.S.

Medical Marijuana and Doctors

“According to a survey of 400 physicians, both general practitioners and specialists in the Netherlands, which was performed just before the legal introduction of medicinal cannabis, only 6% said that they were under no condition willing to prescribe medicinal cannabis, while 60% to 70% regarded medicinal cannabis sufficiently socially accepted and would prescribe it if asked for by a patient.”

Medical Marijuana and health

According to the recent experiment on influence of cannabis, marijuana proved to be effective as a therapy for nausea (93%) and vomiting (75%), and as an appetite stimulant (95%).
These results were also shown by many other medical researches, such as The Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report that stated “The accumulated data indicate a potential therapeutic value for cannabinoid drugs, particularly for symptoms such as pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation.”
Cannabinoids likely have a natural role in pain modulation, control of movement, and memory.

Arguments about marijuana being the gateway drug

The Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report explained that marijuana has been mistaken for a gateway drug in the past because “Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana, usually before they are of legal age.”

Facts about marijuana and law violation

Marijuana Accounts for Two Out of Five Arrests for Drug Violations. However, Marijuana Arrests Do Not Translate to a Large Share of Offenders in Prison. More than 80% of people serving in prison, do not have violations involving drugs.

Marijuana users spent an estimated $11 Billion to obtain illegal marijuana

In 2009 666,120 kgs of illegal Marijuana was seizure by the DEA.

The most common illicit drugs used by current users over the age of 12 were marijuana (12.1 million users, or 5.4% of the population).

In 1992, the overall cost of drug abuse to society was approximately $102 billion. The projected overall cost reached $160.7 billion in 2000.

Marijuana and Law Enforcement

Drug Enforcement Operations
The 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey of State and local law enforcement agencies found that 76% of State law enforcement agencies had primary responsibility for enforcing drug laws in their jurisdictions. Also, 90% of county police departments, 99% of municipal police departments, and 95% of sheriffs’ departments had primary responsibility for drug law enforcement.
Arrests (tax money for convicted)
Of the 115,589 offenders arrested by Federal law enforcement agencies in 2000, 28% were arrested for drug offenses. Of the 35,000 arrests made in 2001 by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 38.8% involved cocaine, 9.4% involved heroin, 19.7% involved marijuana, and 32.0% involved other drugs. That means that 6895 people were arrested for marijuana use during one year.
According to the BJS National Judicial Reporting Program, 195,183 people were convicted in State courts of drug trafficking in 1998. That same year, 119,443 were convicted of drug possession. 22,975 (2.5%) was convicted for marijuana possession.
During 2000, the average incarceration sentence length received by Federal drug offenders was 75.6 months.

Drug control budget: money spent to enforce marijuana and other drugs control

The requested drug control budget amount for FY 2004 is $11.7 billion

Medical Marijuana business in California and profits

Marijuana is, after all, California’s biggest cash crop, responsible for $14 billion a year in sales, dwarfing the state’s second largest agricultural commodity — milk and cream — which brings in $7.3 billion a year, according to the most recent USDA statistics, Time says.