Date of Award

4-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Dr. Patrick Donnay

Abstract

Support for marijuana has been growing nationwide. This increased support has gained a lot of momentum since the late 1990s when California became the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use by enacting Proposition 215, or the Compassionate Use Act. Since the enactment of Proposition 215, 28 more states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medicinal use. I look into why states have begun to adopt these laws, and what makes these states differ throughout the country in the timeliness of their actions. I assembled data to examine a variety of state policies to attempt to explain its’ policies towards medical marijuana. I chose to look specifically at economic and moral policies across states and internal factors within those states. I then took the information I found and determined what states that allow marijuana as a medicine have in common in these three areas.

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