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Journal Of Psychoactive Drugs Reinarman, Et Al., Essay

¶ … Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (Reinarman, et al., 2011); the authors conducted research into the people / patients that are using legal medical marijuana. The authors assert in the Abstract that while much has been written about the therapeutic potential of cannabis, very little research has been done on those who have doctor's prescriptions to legally use the drug. Hence, the article references a sample of 1,746 patients from nine medical marijuana "evaluation clinics" in California (Reinarman, 128). After offering a quick review of the history of marijuana use for health purposes -- cannabis has been "widely used in many societies for centuries" and it was introduced as "modern medicine" in Europe in 1839 -- the authors report that "…pain, insomnia, and anxiety" are the most common among the ailments for which doctors have prescribed medical marijuana.

The tone and substance of this article points towards the positives for cities and states that have legalized marijuana for medical use (there are now sixteen states plus the District of Columbia that offer legal medical marijuana) at the same time the U.S. Department of Justice has "cracked down on dispensaries" (Cooper, 2012, p. 1).
The city of Oakland, for example, collected $1.4 million in taxes in 2011 from marijuana dispensaries -- about 3% of all the business taxes is received into its coffers (Cooper, 2012). In Colorado Springs more than $700,000 in taxes was collected from the medical marijuana dispensaries, which Cooper acknowledges is not a great deal of money for a sizable city. But when a cash-strapped city -- that recently had to shut down one-third of its streetlights in order to save $1.2 million -- collects seven hundred thousand from the sale of marijuana, it's a positive situation.

Denver collected more than $3.4 million from taxing marijuana (and from license and application fees) and the state of Colorado pulled in $5 million all told from medical marijuana in 2011 (Cooper, p. 2). And Oregon actually closed a budget gap in 2011 by raising the annual fees it requires for those with doctor's prescriptions -- it is now $200…

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Works Cited

Cooper, Michael. (2012). Struggling Cities Turn to a Crop for Cash. The New York Times.

Retrieved March 16, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com.

Reinarman, Craig, Nunberg, Helen, Lanthier, Fran, and Heddleston, Tom. (2011). Who Are

Medical Marijuana Patients? Population Characteristics from Nine California Assessment
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