Most Americans Disagree With Obama About Medical Marijuana

The medical use of marijuana is currently legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia. Those states allow sick people to use marijuana after getting a prescription from a doctor. Back during his run for the presidency in 2008, President Obama promised voters that he would respect the right of these states to make their own decisions about medical marijuana, and would stop the DEA's arrest and intimidation of both users and sellers of marijuana when legal under state law. He has not kept that promise.

The sad fact is that the Obama administration has continued the same old Bush administration policy of arresting sick people who fill their marijuana prescriptions and the retailers who sell them that marijuana (legally under state law). The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) was convinced that this was not the kind of mean-spirited policy the American people wanted their government to follow, so they hired the Mason-Dixon Polling organization to find out.

It turns out that the MPP was right. The Mason-Dixon Poll surveyed 1000 random likely voters between May 10th and May 14th (and the survey had a 3 point margin of error). They found that a huge majority of Americans disagreed with the president's policy of taking federal action against legal use of medical marijuana. Here are the numbers (with the percentages being those who disagree with the president):

THE PRESIDENT SHOULD RESPECT STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS.

General Public...............74%

Men...............73%
Women...............74%

Democrats...............75%
Independents...............79%
Republicans...............67%

18 to 34...............81%
35 to 49...............76%
50 to 64...............76%
65 plus...............64%

White...............73%
Black...............81%
Hispanic...............73%

The president is on the wrong side of this issue. He needs to reconsider his position.