America’s One Million Legal
Marijuana Users
May 31, 2011 - norml.org
By "Radical" Russ Belville

At Least 1 – 1.5 Million Americans are Legal Medical Marijuana Patients
Market for these patients in sixteen states and
D.C. estimated at between $2 – $6 billion annually
We don’t know his or her name, but somewhere in one of sixteen
states and the District of Columbia is America’s
1,000,000th legal medical marijuana patient. We estimate the
United States reached the million-patients mark sometime between the
beginning of the year to when Arizona began issuing patient
registry identification cards online in April 2011.
Between one to one-and-a-half million people are legally authorized
by their state to use marijuana in the United States, according to data
compiled by NORML from state medical marijuana registries and patient
estimates. Assuming usage of one-half to one gram of cannabis
medicine per day per patient and an average retail price of $320
per ounce, these legal consumers represent a $2.3 to $6.2
billion dollar market annually.
Based on state medical marijuana laws, the amounts of cannabis these
legal marijuana users are entitled to possess means there is
between 566 – 803 thousand pounds of legal usable cannabis allowed
under state law in America. These patients are allowed
to cultivate between 17 – 24 million legal cannabis plants. There
may possibly be more, as California and New Mexico “limits” may be
exceeded with doctor’s permission and some California counties
explicitly allow greater amounts, so there may be as much as 1
million pounds of state-legal cannabis allowed under state law
in America.
| Active
Medical Marijuana State (Total population of sixteen
medical marijuana states + D.C. = over 90 million. D.C.,
Delaware, and New Jersey programs are not yet active.) |
# Legal Medical Marijuana Patients (% of state population) |
| California (1996) - No central state
registry, 2% – 3% of overall population estimate by Dale Gieringer at
California NORML by comparing rates in Colorado & Montana. |
~750,000 (2.00%)
~1,125,000 (3.00%)
|
| Washington (1998) - No registry, 1% –
1.5% of overall population estimate by Russ Belville at NORML by
comparing rates in Oregon & Colorado. |
~67,000 (1.00%)
~100,000 (1.50%)
|
| Oregon (1998) - Centralized state
registry data published online. |
39,774 (1.04%) |
| Alaska (1998) - No data online,
verified by author’s call to Alaska Bureau of Vital Statistics. |
380 (0.05%) |
| Maine (1999) - Centralized state
registry data published online. |
796 (0.06%) |
| Nevada (2000) - 2008 figures from
ProCon.org, awaiting return call from state for official number. |
860 (0.03%) |
| Hawaii (2000) - Estimate from Pam
Lichty of Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii; program is run by law
enforcement who are reluctant to release data. |
~8,000 (0.59%) |
| Colorado (2000) - Centralized state
registry data published online. |
123,890 (2.46%) |
| Vermont (2004) - No data online,
verified by author’s call to Vermont Criminal Information Center. |
349 (0.06%) |
| Montana (2004) - Centralized state
registry data published online. |
30,609 (3.09%) |
| Rhode Island (2006) - Centralized
state registry data published online. |
3,069 (0.29%) |
| New Mexico (2007) - Centralized state
registry data published online. |
3,615 (0.18%) |
| Michigan (2008) - Centralized state
registry data published online. |
75,521 (0.76%) |
| Arizona (2010) - Centralized state
registry data published online. |
3,696 (0.06%) |
| TOTAL US LEGAL MARIJUANA USERS |
~1,100,000 (1.22%)
~1,500,000 (1.67%)
|
Yet after fifteen years, one million patients, and a million pounds
of legal marijuana, few if any of the dire predictions by opponents of
medical marijuana have come to fruition. Medical marijuana states
like Oregon are experiencing their lowest-ever rates of workplace
fatalities, injuries, and accidents. States like Colorado are
experiencing their lowest rates in three decades of fatal crashes
per million miles driven. In medical marijuana states for
which we have data (through Michigan in 2008), use by minor teenagers
is down in all but Maine and down by at least 10% in states with the
greatest proportion of their population using medical cannabis.
| Medical Marijuana State |
Age 12-17 Monthly Use When Passed |
Age 12-17 Monthly Use in 2008 |
Highway Fatalities When Passed |
Highway Fatalities in 2009 |
Workplace Injuries / Illness When Passed |
Workplace Injuries / Illness in 2009 |
| California (1996) |
7.70% |
6.86% |
3,989 |
3,081 |
7.1% |
4.2% |
| Washington (1996) |
9.90% |
7.17% |
662 |
492 |
9.2% |
5.3% |
| Oregon (1998) |
9.60% |
8.22% |
538 |
377 |
6.8% |
4.5% |
| Alaska (1998) |
10.40% |
8.03% |
70 |
64 |
7.4% |
4.6% |
| Maine (1999) |
7.20% |
9.06% |
181 |
159 |
8.8% |
5.6% |
| Nevada (2000) |
9.54% |
7.52% |
323 |
243 |
7.2% |
4.4% |
| Hawaii (2000) |
8.72% |
7.07% |
132 |
109 |
6.2% |
4.2% |
| Colorado (2000) |
10.80% |
9.10% |
681 |
465 |
n/a |
n/a |
| Vermont (2004) |
11.11% |
10.86% |
98 |
74 |
5.6% |
5.1% |
| Montana (2004) |
10.00% |
8.60% |
229 |
221 |
7.2% |
5.3% |
| Rhode Island (2006) |
9.74% |
9.46% |
81 |
83 |
5.2% |
n/a |
| New Mexico (2007) |
8.73% |
8.19% |
413 |
361 |
5.0% |
4.8% |
| Michigan (2008) |
n/a |
7.36% |
980 |
871 |
4.5% |
4.2% |
Fourteen of the seventeen medical marijuana jurisdictions have
mandatory registries while two (California and Colorado) offer optional
registries and one (Washington) has no registry system.
Estimating California’s patient numbers is hampered by its
registry system being on a county-by-county basis. California
NORML’s Dale Gieringer estimates between 2% – 3% of the state’s
population are holding medical marijuana recommendations – meaning
possibly over one million medical marijuana patients in
California alone.
California’s patient population can be estimated from data from
other medical marijuana states where patients are required to register,
shown in the table below. The top two of these are Colorado and
Montana, which, like California, have a well developed network of
cannabis clinics and dispensaries, and which report usage rates of 2.5%
and 3.0%, respectively. Other states, where medical marijuana is less
developed, report lower rates of 1% and less. However, California
is likely to be on the high side because it has the oldest and most
liberal law in the nation. Significantly, California is the
only state that permits marijuana to be used for any condition for
which it provides relief – in particular, psychiatric disorders, such
as PTSD, bipolar disorder, ADD, anxiety and depression, which account
for some 20%-25% of the total patient population. Adjusting for this,
usage in California could be as much as 25% to 33% higher than in
Colorado and Montana, which would put it well over 3% of the population
(1,125,000).
A 2%+ patient population estimate is supported by data from
the Oakland Patient ID Center, which has been issuing patient
identification cards to its members since 1996. The OPIDC serves
patients from all over the state, but especially the greater
Oakland-East Bay area of Northern California, where its cards are
honored by law enforcement. As of 2010, the OPIDC had issued ID’s to
19,805 members from five East Bay cities (Oakland,
Berkeley, Alameda, Hayward and Richmond), amounting to 2.4% of the
local population.Because the cards were issued over a period
of 14 years, they include numerous patients who have lapsed, moved, or
deceased. On the other hand, they do not include many other local
patients who have current recommendations but never registered with the
OPIDC.
We have made a similar estimate for Washington State’s patients, who
are the only ones in the nation with no registry system in place (Gov.
Gregoire recently signed a bill that initiates a voluntary registry).
With a law very similar to Oregon’s concerning qualifying
conditions, applying Oregon’s 1.04% patient population
figure gives us about 69,000 patients in Washington. However,
Washington State’s larger urban centers (Seattle and Spokane), combined
with a more liberal law than Oregon’s regarding who can sign
recommendations (osteopaths, naturopaths, and nurse practitioners can
recommend in Washington) and the lack of a state registry’s burden to
patient compliance with the program suggests a higher estimate of 1.5%
– 2% may be appropriate. Numbers like Colorado’s 2.5% and
Montana’s 3% are improbable as Washington lacks the greater patient
access to dispensaries seen in those states.
Delaware, New Jersey, and D.C.’s programs are not operational yet,
so they are not shown in our data table. Most of the other
state’s programs produce reports of patient registry numbers.
With Arizona signing up over 3,600 patients since mid-April, when
it’s online-only registration went into effect, Arizona is
on track to register over 30,000 patients this year.
Quick Facts about
Medical Marijuana States:
- The 1.1 – 1.5 million estimated and registered medical marijuana
patients in America are legally entitled to cultivate 17 – 24 million
cannabis plants and possess 283 – 402 tons of harvested buds.
- The seventeen jurisdictions with medical marijuana encompass over
90 million Americans and 162 votes in the 2012 Electoral College.
- Patients make up over 3% of the population of Montana, almost
2.5% of Colorado, over 2% of California. and over 1% of Oregon, and
Washington.
- After Michigan at 0.76% of population, every other medical
marijuana state has less than 3 in 1,000 (0.3%) patients in its
population.
- California, Colorado, Washington, Michigan, Oregon, and Montana
comprise over 98% of the legal medical marijuana patients in America.
- More than 3 out of four (77% – 83%) of all medical marijuana
patients live on the West Coast.
- Rhode Island and Vermont, two states where over 10% of the adult
population uses marijuana monthly, have patient populations of 0.29%
and 0.05%, respectively.
- Monthly teen use of marijuana is down in every medical marijuana
state except Maine.
- Annual highway fatalities are down in every medical marijuana
state except Rhode Island.
- Incidents of workplace injuries and illnesses are down in every
medical marijuana state.