What are the findings of physician surveys on medical marijuana?
General Reference (not clearly pro or con)
The Green Party of Aotearoa conducted a medical marijuana survey of physicians in New Zealand. The survey (published in October 2003) reported that out of the 225 responses received (margin of error +/- 6.5%):
"The
Green Party of Aotearoa conducted a medical marijuana survey of
physicians in New Zealand. The survey (published in October 2003)
reported that out of the 225 responses they received (margin of error
+/- 6.5%):
"37% of doctors felt they did not have sufficient knowledge about the potential of medicinal uses of cannabis.
32% of doctors indicated they would consider prescribing medicinal cannabis products if it were legal to do so.
Very few doctors had ever recommended medicinal use of cannabis to a patient (6%) regardless of vocation....
Between all other physicians, and ophthalmologists,
11% of ophthalmologists and 39% of Other Doctors indicated they would
consider prescribing medicinal cannabis if it were legal to do so....
33% of Other Doctors and 23% of Ophthalmologists thought medical practitioners should be able to prescribe cannabis products."
WebMD Senior Writer Daniel DeNoon, in a Sep. 6, 2003 article titled "Medical Marijuana Slowly Gains Ground," wrote:
"In the
last week of July 2003, Medscape -- WebMD's web site for medical
professionals -- asked its members what they thought about medical
marijuana. It wasn't a scientific poll, although a member's vote is
counted only once. Still, the results were surprising. There was a huge
response. Three out of four doctors -- and nine out of 10 nurses --
said they favored decriminalization of marijuana for medical uses."
The Americans for Safe Access (ASA) Communications Consultant Hilary McQuie, stated in a July 27, 2003 article in the San Francisco Chronicle:
"...since
the passage of California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996, more than
1,500 physicians statewide have recommended medical cannabis to their
patients. But over 80 percent of medical cannabis recommendations have
come from 10 doctors. Many of the others that have made recommendations
will only agree to do so if the patient has a terminal illness, despite
the widespread understanding that marijuana is also effective in
treating many non-terminal illnesses."
The Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center's (LACRC) President Scott Imler, told ProCon.org on Dec. 3, 2002:
"Our
membership of almost 2,000 active and inactive members were recommended
marijuana as medicine by approximately 448 licensed California
physicians.
Of
those recommendations, 80% were for patients with HIV/AIDS, 10% were
for cancer, and the remaining 10% were for a variety of other diseases
and conditions."
The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), in its Nov. 2002 report on medical marijuana, "Marijuana: Early Experiences with Four States' Laws That Allow Use of Medical Purposes," stated the following:
"As of
February 2002, less than one percent of the approximately 5,700
phsyicians in Hawaii [approx. 57] and three percent of Oregon's
physicians out of about 12,900 [approx.387] had recommended marijuana
to their patients."
Reuters Health reported the findings of researchers at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I. that were presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Society of Addiction Medicine on Apr. 23, 2001:
"Of the
960 physicians questioned nationwide, 36 percent agreed that doctors
should be able to legally prescribe marijuana as medical therapy, while
38 percent disagreed and 26 percent were neutral.
For the study,
researchers surveyed physicians in five specialty areas: addiction
medicine-psychiatry, general psychiatry, obstetrics-gynecology, family
practice and internal medicine. The results of the survey found that
obstetricians-gynecologists and internists were more likely to support
medical marijuana than other specialists surveyed. The researchers
postulated that doctors in these two specialty areas see more cancer
patients and are more sensitive to marijuana's potential to ease
chemotherapy side-effects and pain."
Eric Voth, MD, Chairman of the Institute on Global Drug Policy, and Richard Schwartz, MD, Physician in Advanced Pediatrics at the INOVA Fairax Hospital for Children, conducted a survey in 1995 of 1,500 oncologists regarding their opinion of the available antiemetic drugs:
"Most
credible oncologists do not support using crude marijuana. According to
our 1995 study, only 12% of oncologists ever recommended [marijuana] to
their patients and that could be out of thousands of patients. Only 1%
of those oncologists had recommended more than 5 times per year. This
finding is quite different than the Kleiman/Doblin study. Some
oncologists allow the marijuana after being asked for it by their
patients rather than volunteering a recommendation."
Mark Kleiman, PhD, Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, and Rick Doblin, PhD, President of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), conducted a 1990 survey on oncologists' attitudes and experiences with medical marijuana that revealed:
"Out
of 1,035 clinical oncologists surveyed, 44% of oncologists said they
had ever recommended smoked marijuana to one or more of their
patients."
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