The 25 States Where Medical Marijuana Is Legal

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

medical cannabis

It is presumed that states where medical marijuana is legal will be the most likely to have laws that provide for recreational use. The number of medical marijuana states numbers 25 at this point.

According to National Conference of State Legislators:

In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215, making the Golden State the first in the union to allow for the medical use of marijuana. Since then, 24 more states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico have enacted similar laws.

And not all the laws are created equal:

States with medical marijuana laws generally have some form of patient registry, which may provide some protection against arrest for possession up to a certain amount of marijuana for personal medicinal use.

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Also, the use of medical marijuana has a number of suggested restrictions:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adjusted their guidelines to encourage doctors to stop testing patients for marijuana as it can lead to “stigmatization” and “inappropriate termination of care.”

In an attempt to prevent patients from being denied treatment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging doctors not to test pain patients on opioids for marijuana. Earlier this month, the CDC released an updated set of guidelines for medical professionals who prescribe opioids to patients with chronic pain. Within those guidelines is language encouraging doctors to not test patients for cannabis since a positive test could disqualify them from continued pain management treatment.

The National Conference of State Legislators even keeps a list:

  • Alaska
  • Arizona
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • District of Columbia
  • Guam
  • Hawaii
  • Illinois
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Montana
  • Nevada
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New Mexico
  • New York
  • Ohio
  • Oregon
  • Pennsylvania
  • Puerto Rico
  • Rhode Island
  • Vermont
  • Washington

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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