#NORML #News Source: @norml Posted By: norml@weedconnection.com media :: news - Sun, 12 Jan 2014 04:20:21 PST
Most Americans Believe Marijuana 'Should Be Made Legal'
Washington, DC: Fifty-five percent of Americans favor making cannabis legal for adults, according to the findings of a CNN/ORC International survey released this week. The percentage is the highest ever reported by the survey, which has been tracking public opinion on the issue since 1973, and marks a 12-point jump in support since the last time pollsters posed the question in 2012.
Respondents' support for legalizing marijuana was influenced by age, gender, political affiliation, and place of residence. A strong majority of self-described Democrats (62 percent) and Independents (59 percent) favored legalization, but not Republicans (36 percent). Male respondents (51 percent) favored legalization at greater percentages than did women (49 percent). While support rates for people in the northeast (60%), the west (58%) and the midwest (57%) were similar, support among those in the south was lower (48%).
In response to a separate question, only 35 percent of those polled responded that consuming cannabis was "morally wrong" -- down from 70 percent in 1987, the last time pollsters posed the question. Nearly three-quarters of respondents also said that they believed that alcohol posed greater dangers to the consumer than did cannabis.
The CNN/ORC poll surveyed 1,010 Americans and possesses a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
The survey's findings are similar to those of a fall 2013 Gallup poll that reported nationwide support for legalizing marijuana at 58 percent, the highest level of support ever recorded in a national scientific poll.
New York: Governor Pledges To Revive State's Dormant Medical Cannabis Program
New York, NY: Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo intends to revive a dormant state law that allows for cannabis to be dispensed by physicians in hospital settings. The Governor formally announced his intentions during his State of the State address on Wednesday, acknowledging, "Research suggests that marijuana can help manage the pain of cancer and other serious illnesses."
Under his announced plan, physicians at up to 20 hospitals throughout the state will be permitted to authorize qualifying patients to use cannabis therapeutically. Governor Cuomo said that he intends to implement the program via executive action rather than by an act of the legislature. In previous years, proposals to legalize the broader therapeutic use of the plant have passed the state Assembly but have stalled in the Senate.
Under a 1980 state law known as the Antonio G.Olivieri Controlled Substance Therapeutic Research Program, physicians possess the ability to prescribe cannabis to patients as an investigational new drug. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, dozens of states enacted similar laws, which relied on federal officials to provide government-grown cannabis to state health departments. However, only a limited number of states - California, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee, and Vermont - ever successfully implemented these specific types of federally coordinated therapeutic research programs, all of which were discontinued by the mid-1980s.
More recent state efforts to resurrect similar programs have not been successful.
In 2013, Maryland lawmakers enacted legislation to allow the substance to be dispensed at teaching hospitals. To date, however, no hospitals have volunteered to participate in the program and two of the state's largest institutions, Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University of Maryland Medical System, have publicly said that they will not have any involvement in the proposed system.
According to a 2012 statewide Siena College Research Institute poll, 82 percent of New Yorkers support the legalization of cannabis when authorized by a physician. Until this year, Gov. Cuomo had previously been on record opposing the therapeutic use of marijuana regardless of the circumstances.
Study: Alcohol, Not Cannabis, Associated With Intimate Partner Violence
Knoxville, TN: Men's consumption of alcohol, but not cannabis, is associated with intimate partner violence, according to survey data published this month in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
Investigators at the University of Tennessee and Florida State assessed whether alcohol intoxication and/or cannabis use by college-age men in a current dating relationship was associated with increased odds of physical, sexual, or psychological aggression toward their partner over a 90-day period.
They reported: "On any alcohol use days, heavy alcohol use days (five or more standard drinks), and as the number of drinks increased on a given day, the odds of physical and sexual aggression perpetration increased. The odds of psychological aggression increased on heavy alcohol use days only."
By contrast, authors determined that "marijuana use days did not increase the odds of any type of aggression."
Authors concluded, "Our findings were consistent with theoretical models of alcohol use and intimate partner violence and previous research, in that the odds of psychological, physical, and sexual aggression were all increased subsequent to alcohol use."
Full text of the study, "Acute alcohol use temporarily increases the odds of male perpetrated dating violence: A 90-day diary analysis," appears in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
