Who Are Medical Marijuana Patients? Population Characteristics from Nine California Assessment Clinics

Abstract

Marijuana is a currently illegal psychoactive drug that many physicians believe has substantial therapeutic uses. The medical literature contains a growing number of studies on cannabinoids as well as case studies and anecdotal reports suggesting therapeutic potential. Fifteen states have passed medical marijuana laws, but little is known about the growing population of patients who use marijuana medicinally. This article reports on a sample of 1,746 patients from a network of nine medical marijuana evaluation clinics in California. Patients completed a standardized medical history form; evaluating physicians completed standardized evaluation forms. From this data we describe patient characteristics, self-reported presenting symptoms, physician evaluations, other treatments tried, other drug use, and medical marijuana use practices. Pain, insomnia, and anxiety were the most common conditions for which evaluating physicians recommended medical marijuana. Shifts in the medical marijuana patient population over time, the need for further research, and the issue of diversion are discussed.

Keywords:

• anxiety
• cannabis therapeutics
• insomnia
• medical marijuana
• pain

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the medical marijuana patient-applicants for providing the data, the RAND Corporation for funding data collection and data set construction, MediCann for administrative support, the Rosenbaum Foundation for financial support for this research, and Lester Grinspoon and anonymous referees for helpful comments. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, San Francisco, August 9, 2009.

Notes

1. We are grateful to one anonymous reviewer for pointing out that the cost of these assessments may well have prevented some potential MM patients—including many impoverished HIV/AIDS patients—from obtaining ID cards, which may have affected the demographics of this sample.

Conant v. Walters. 2002. 309 F. 3d. 629 (Ninth Circuit 2002, cert. denied Oct. 14, 2003).

County of San Diego v. San Diego NORML. 2008. 165 Cal.App. 4th 798, cert. denied, 556 U.S. ___ (2009).

Gonzales v. Raich. 2006. 352 F. 3d 1222 (Supreme Court 03–1454, 2006).