How many people in the US use medical marijuana?
The following chart shows the number of medical marijuana patients in 12 of the 13 states with legal medical marijuana laws through 2008 (Michigan’s registration program is scheduled to begin on Apr. 4, 2009). We recognize the possibility that not all medical marijuana users register for identification cards and not all of the people registered have valid medical uses for the marijuana. The chart below shows both the actual number of patients holding identification cards in the nine states with mandatory registration and the estimated number of patients (according to MPP, the Marijuana Policy Project) for the three states (CA, OR, and WA) with voluntary or no registration. State population numbers are from the US Census Bureau’s 2006 data. Unless otherwise noted, the chart reflects the information from each state’s official registry website that was available as of Jan. 14, 2009.
