Tony Leys

tleys@dmreg.com

© COPYRIGHT 2016, DES MOINES REGISTER AND TRIBUNE COMPANY

More than three-quarters of Iowans now favor allowing people to use marijuana as medicine, but most remain opposed to legalizing it for recreation, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.

Iowans have steadily become more comfortable with the use of medical marijuana, which now is supported by 78 percent of the state’s adults, according to the Iowa Poll. That is up from 58 percent in 2013.

But most Iowans continue to oppose allowing people to smoke or eat marijuana for recreational purposes. Just 34 percent of adults favor that idea, up 5 percentage points from 2013, the poll shows.

The poll’s results come as state legislators consider expanding Iowa’s tiny medical-marijuana program.

MORE IOWA POLL:

Poll participant Larry Brown, 78, of Albia, is one of many Iowans who favor legalizing marijuana products for medical uses, but not for fun. Brown thinks society has plenty of problems with alcohol and doesn’t need to add recreational marijuana to the list.

The retired building contractor said he isn’t sure what to make of health claims surrounding marijuana, such as that they can ease pain, seizures and nausea.

“But if doctors think it would help people, I think we ought to let them have it,” said Brown, a political independent who said his attitudes toward marijuana have softened over the years.

He believes marijuana is at least as safe as many pills sold at pharmacies.

“If you look at all the prescription drugs we have on the market — my land, you don’t even know what’s in half of them,” he said. Warnings included in prescription-drug ads show many of them can have serious side effects, he said.

Iowa’s current medical marijuana law, passed in 2014, only allows possession of a marijuana extract for people with severe epilepsy. It doesn’t provide any legal method to produce or distribute the medication. Only 95 cards have been issued, the Iowa Department of Public Health reports.

Legislation in the Iowa House would allow some production and distribution of the extract, which contains very little of the chemical that makes recreational users high. The bill also would add multiple sclerosis and terminal cancer to the list of ailments for which patients could legally use the extract.

The bill was introduced by a Republican representative, and although the proposal has been trimmed, it is moving forward in the Republican-controlled House. This week, it gained the support of more than 90 business leaders, including some of central Iowa’s most prominent executives.

The latest Iowa Poll suggests why the issue is gaining strength among such leaders: Sixty-five percent of Iowa Republicans now say they support legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. That’s lower than the 87 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of political independents, but it’s still a strong majority.

Medical marijuana also is supported by all age groups, the poll shows. Support is strongest among adults younger than 35, 87 percent of whom favor legalizing medical marijuana. But even 68 percent of those 65 or older support it, the poll shows.

The poll was conducted by Selzer & Co., which surveyed 804 Iowa adults Feb. 21-24. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Poll participant Ricardo Kephart, 33, of Des Moines, is one of the minority of Iowans who would allow marijuana both for medical and recreational purposes. He said he doesn’t drink alcohol or use marijuana, but he thinks alcohol is probably more dangerous than pot.

Kephart, who works in the insurance industry, said he’s troubled by reports that marijuana laws are enforced more severely against African Americans. Kephart, who is white, noted studies show both races use marijuana about as often, but African Americans tend to be arrested more often for it.

Kephart was confident Iowa someday will fully legalize marijuana. He scoffed at the state’s current law that allows patients with epilepsy to possess marijuana extract but offers no legal way to obtain it.

“That’s just our government being ineffective,” he said.

Poll participant Chad Ver Hoef, 44, of Ankeny, opposes legalizing marijuana for any purpose. He said he understands that some of the most visible activists are trying to obtain it for children with epilepsy.

“You know, my heart goes out to those people,” he said. But he suspects many other medical-marijuana activists have ulterior motives.

“They want their pot,” he said.

Ver Hoef, who works as a debt collector for a bank, describes himself as a staunch conservative. He said progressives, including those in the media, are good at steadily shifting public opinion toward their views.

Marijuana can be a dangerous drug, he said, and allowing its use for medical purposes inevitably would bring full legalization.

“Once we open that door, it’s Pandora’s box," he said. "We won’t get it closed again.”

The Marijuana Policy Project, which tracks such policies, does not include Iowa in the list of states with “effective” medical marijuana laws. It says 23 other states and the District of Columbia have such laws, and four have effective laws allowing other uses of marijuana.

One of Iowa’s leading medical-marijuana advocates, Sally Gaer of West Des Moines, said she was thrilled to hear of the Iowa Poll’s findings of continuously growing support.

“I just hope our legislators will wake up and smell the coffee. This is not that hard,” said Gaer, whose adult daughter, Margaret, has a state permit to use cannabis oil to treat her severe epilepsy.

Sally Gaer has helped organize families to lobby for the original law and expand it. She’d like to see legalization of production and distribution of the oil and other forms of medical marijuana, plus permission to use it for a range of ailments.

Gaer noted that the current law is only set to last through June 2017, so she said legislators must pass some kind of replacement.

Peter Komendowski, president of the Partnership for a Drug Free Iowa, contends that companies selling marijuana as medicine should be regulated as tightly as pharmaceutical companies selling prescription pills.

He noted a national study is looking at the effectiveness of a professionally made marijuana extract to treat epileptic seizures. That study, which includes volunteers treated at the University of Iowa, should be done soon and could lead to a legal version of the drug that could be sold at pharmacies, he said.

Komendowski said more informal marijuana-product companies are selling “anecdotal drugs,” without scientific proof of effectiveness or safety. He said the state lacks the expertise and resources that the federal government has with the Food and Drug Administration, so Iowa should not try to set up and regulate its own medical-marijuana industry.

About the poll

The Iowa Poll, conducted Feb. 21-24 for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 804 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted households with randomly selected landline and cell phone numbers supplied by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent census data.

Questions based on the sample of 804 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 a larger margin of error.

Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to The Des Moines Register and Mediacom is prohibited.