Research Brief
How State Medical Marijuana Laws Vary: A Comprehensive Review
Jan 1, 2003
State Medical Marijuana Laws
Understanding the Laws and Their Limitations
Published in: Journal of Public Health Policy, v. 23, no. 4, 2002. p. 413-439
Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2002
Read More
Access further information on this document at www.palgrave-journals.comThis article was published outside of RAND. The full text of the article can be found at the link above.
Significant attention has been given to the debate regarding allowances for medical marijuana use since the 1996 California and Arizona ballot initiatives. State medical marijuana allowances, however, have existed since the mid-1970s. Much of the current debate stems from confusion about the various ways states approach the issue. In this paper, the authors present original legal research on current state medical marijuana laws identifying four different ways states statutorily enable the medical use of marijuana. They discuss the tension these approaches have with federal law as well as their implications regarding real access for patients. In addition, they present information on how a small number of states are trying to deal with the issue of access within the context of their medical marijuana laws, and discuss the implication of various supply approaches on the enforcement of other state marijuana laws.
Access further information on this document at www.palgrave-journals.com
This article was published outside of RAND. The full text of the article can be found at the link above.
Related Products
This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
Our mission to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis is enabled through our core values of quality and objectivity and our unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and ethical behavior. To help ensure our research and analysis are rigorous, objective, and nonpartisan, we subject our research publications to a robust and exacting quality-assurance process; avoid both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of mandatory disclosure; and pursue transparency in our research engagements through our commitment to the open publication of our research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure intellectual independence. For more information, visit www.rand.org/about/research-integrity.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.