Pubdate: Mon, 25 Feb 2013 Source: Des Moines Register (IA) Copyright: 2013 The Des Moines Register Contact: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/99999999/HELP/40507010 Website: http://desmoinesregister.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123 Author: Tony Leys IOWA POLL: SUPPORT FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA SLIDES The Idea Is Still Backed by a Majority, but the Size Has Shrunk Since 2010. Allowing Recreational Use Is Still Solidly Opposed. More than half of Iowans favor allowing sick people to use marijuana as medicine, but the idea is not as popular as it used to be, according to The Des Moines Register's latest Iowa Poll. But a large, steady majority of Iowans disapprove of allowing people to smoke marijuana just to get high. The survey found that 58 percent of Iowa adults support legalizing medical marijuana. That's down 6 percentage points from a similar poll question posed in 2010. Only 29 percent of Iowans support allowing recreational use of the drug, up a point from three years ago. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, which proponents say can ease pain, nausea and other symptoms of diseases such as cancer. Voters in Colorado and Washington state also have approved recreational marijuana under certain conditions. But Iowa appears unlikely to join them soon. A medical marijuana bill died in an Iowa House subcommittee last month. A similar bill is pending in the Senate, but House leaders and the governor have indicated they oppose the idea, which opponents say would open the door wider to drug abuse. The issue has been kicked around the Statehouse for years. But it has failed to gain traction, even after the Iowa Pharmacy Board in 2010 recommended reclassifying marijuana in a way that could make it legal for medical purposes. The poll, conducted by Selzer & Co. of West Des Moines, comprised 802 Iowa adults interviewed Feb. 3-6. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Poll participant Cato Allsup, 65, of Winthrop has mixed feelings on the subject. He acknowledges that marijuana could help a few people with medical problems. But he worries that allowing its distribution for such uses would quickly lead to abuse. "How many of those people are going to take it and sell it to support their little habits?" he said. "If a doctor says a person needs it, they need to find a way to make sure it's used for that purpose and that purpose only." Allsup, who retired on disability from construction work, is firmly against giving blanket permission to use marijuana for fun. "Then you'd have a bunch of dopeheads out on the highway killing people," he said. Tara Roberts, 51, of Ottumwa would be OK with letting Iowans use marijuana for whatever purpose they want. "We legalized alcohol. To me, somebody who's drunk is worse than somebody who's on marijuana any day," she said. "When somebody's under the influence of alcohol, there's more fights, there's more domestic abuse." Roberts, who said she has worked in health care, said she believes marijuana could help many people deal with pain with fewer side effects than narcotic pills bring. Roseann Wilson, 60, of Dubuque is leery of allowing marijuana use. "Part of me would like to legalize it and tax the heck out of it, but part of me sees it as the gateway drug" leading users to more dangerous drugs, said Wilson, who owns a car dealership. She's skeptical of the argument that the drug could be reserved for medical purposes. "That seems like it's kind of tap-dancing around the issue," she said. She added that her views are affected by what she saw around her when she was younger. "I didn't know anybody who smoked a lot of pot who ever amounted to much." Luke Goodell, 35, of Hubbard is skeptical, too. "We can't even control drunken driving, let alone the idea of people smoking pot and driving," said Goodell, who works at an ethanol plant. If medical marijuana was approved, he said, "it would have to be tightly controlled, not like they have out in California, where you can go in and get marijuana for any old complaint." The poll shows that Iowans' stances on the issue vary by age. For example, 68 percent of adults younger than 35 support legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, compared with 58 percent of people ages 35 through 54 and 49 percent of people 55 or older. When asked about legalizing the drug for recreational purposes, 47 percent of those younger than 35 support the idea, compared with 28 percent of people ages 35 through 54 and 16 percent of those 55 or older. The poll results also reflect partisan differences. Seventy-five percent of Iowa Democrats support legalizing medical marijuana, compared with 39 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of political independents. Forty-three percent of Iowa Democrats favor legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes, compared with 18 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of independents. Mark Tvert, a spokesman for the national Marijuana Policy Project, said poll results often vary depending on how the question is phrased. For example, if a pollster asks simply if marijuana should be legalized, many people are likely to say no, he said. "When you say, 'Legalize marijuana and sell it in regulated stores,' " support tends to rise dramatically, he said. Tvert, who lives in Denver, helped lead the successful campaign to have Colorado voters approve recreational marijuana last year, 12 years after they approved medical marijuana. Although some of the medical marijuana dispensaries caused controversy, Tvert said they were better regulated and more accepted than similar businesses were in California. After a while, he said, many Colorado residents decided marijuana was not a big deal, so they agreed to legalize it, regulate it and tax it. Tvert said supporters realize that some states will take much longer than others to legalize marijuana, even for medical purposes. But he said the momentum is shifting. "People just do not think we should be criminalizing sick people for improving their quality of life by using marijuana." Steve Lukan, Iowa's drug control policy director, said the decline in enthusiasm for legalizing medical marijuana here is probably due to reports about how the drug was widely prescribed for minor ailments in states that legalized it. "The medical marijuana laws, unfortunately, became a bit of a joke," he said. Lukan also noted that although marijuana is the most used illicit drug in Iowa, it is not as popular here as it is in other states. A federal survey in 2009-10, for example, found that 14 percent of young Iowa adults had smoked marijuana in the previous month, compared with 18 percent nationally. Lukan, a former GOP state legislator, said he doubted the issue would go far at the Statehouse soon. He noted that many states that have legalized use of the drug have done so through citizen ballot initiatives, which Iowa doesn't have. Tvert, the marijuana legalization activist, said some state legislatures have voted to approve use of the drug, and governors, including a few Republicans, have signed those bills. Tvert said proponents expect many other states to approve the practice over time, as they see it working in their neighboring states. [sidebar] About the poll The Iowa Poll, conducted Feb. 3-6 for The Des Moines Register by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on interviews with 802 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers contacted households with randomly selected landline and cellphone numbers. Responses were adjusted byage and sex to reflect the general population based on recent census data. Questions based on the sample of 802 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the percentages shown here by more than plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Results based on smaller samples of respondents - such as by gender or age - have larger margins of error. Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to The Des Moines Register is prohibited. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom