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The California Medical Association has called on the government to legalize marijuana
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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The California Medical Association has called for marijuana to be legalized. The California Medical Association, which represents about 35,000 doctors, is the first organization in the United States to make such a proposal.
The new concept was sponsored by Sacramento physician Donald Lyman, who said the requirement was prompted by frustration with the current medical marijuana law, which forces doctors to constantly second-guess the federally illegal drug.
A law allowing medical marijuana has been in effect in California since 1996. And in 2010, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a law making possession of less than an ounce (approximately 29 grams) of marijuana a misdemeanor.
According to Lyman, this situation puts doctors in an awkward position. Patients are coming to them for marijuana prescriptions when the indications for its use and long-term side effects are not well defined. According to the CMA, cannabis products can currently be considered little more than "folk medicine".
In this regard, the association called for legalizing the use of marijuana without a doctor's recommendation, regulating its sale in the same way as tobacco and alcohol. While acknowledging that regular cannabis use can pose health risks, California doctors are convinced that the consequences of criminalizing marijuana are more dangerous than this risk.
Specifically, Lyman cited such undesirable consequences of criminalization as increased costs of incarceration, negative consequences for the families of inmates, and racial disparities in sentencing. Legalization, in his opinion, would facilitate medical research related to marijuana and help collect statistical data on the beneficial and harmful effects of its use.
The CMA proposal, approved at the association's annual meeting in Anaheim, has drawn sharp criticism from both law enforcement and health care workers.
John Lovell, a spokesman for the California Association of Chiefs of Police, commented on the doctors' initiative: "It's interesting that they smoke. Given everything we know about the physiological effects of marijuana use - how it affects the brain of teenagers, how many car accidents it is associated with - this is an incredibly irresponsible position."
Georgetown Medical School psychiatry professor Robert DuPont called the call for legalization "an irresponsible disregard for public health" because it would lead to a sharp increase in cannabis use.
Igor Grant, head of the Center for Medical Marijuana at the University of California, San Diego, said that despite the CMA's assertion that marijuana's indications for use are uncertain, its benefits for treating a number of patients have been proven experimentally.
The American Medical Association, of which the CMA is a member, has not yet commented on the cannabis legalization proposal. However, it has previously advocated for lifting some restrictions on marijuana research.