Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (Reinarman, Et Al.,

¶ … 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 second article is found in The New York Times and it presents economic research on the "small but growing source of new tax collections for cities and states" resulting from marijuana dispensaries. 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 a year -- who join the state's medical marijuana program. That raise in fees helped Oregon raise $6.7 million, which is being used for other health programs. Clearly, this article points out that taxing legal marijuana sales has an enormous potential upside for states -- particularly in an era of huge budget shortfalls.

Meantime the Reinarman article points to data acquired from questionnaires doctors require patients to complete -- showing: a) 27.1% of medical marijuana (MM) patients are female; 72.9% are male; b) 82.6% of patients use MM to relieve pain; 41.1% use MM to relieve muscle spasms; 40.7% use MM to relieve headaches; 37.8% use MM to relieve anxiety; 27.7% use it to relieve nausea/vomiting; 26.1% use it to relieve the symptoms of depression; c) 70.7% use MM to improve sleep; 37.7% use MM to improve appetite (Reinarman, 131).

As for California physicians' reasons for approving MM ID cards: 30.6% prescribed MM for back/spine/neck pain; 15.7% for sleep disorders; 13.0% for anxiety and depression; 9.5% for muscle spasms; 8.5% for arthritis; and 4.5% for injuries to knees and feet (Reinarman, 132).