American policy discourse is marked by the clash between cautious knowledge and dogmatic ignorance. For example:
Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy provide a number of mostly data-free, hand-waving, Micawberish arguments for complete marijuana legalization (on the way to legalizing everything). Patrick Kennedy is equally passionate, and even less fact-based, on the other side of the question. On the other hand, The marijuana legalization research team at RAND, knowing much more, is much less confident.
Here’s the marijuana situation right now:
*A few million problem users, many of them minors. Substance abuse disorder related to cannabis isn’t, on average, nearly as bad as substance abuse disorder related to alcohol, but it’s plenty bad enough. (Of course some people get in trouble with both at once.)
*An illicit market around $15b/yr., some of it related to violent drug gangs in Mexico.
*800,000 arrests a year for simple possession.
*About 40,000 dealers behind bars.
Legalization would reduce arrests, incarceration, and the illicit markets. It would also reduce price and increase availability, thus increasing use, including problem use. Higher taxes and tighter regulations (or the equivalent via a state monopoly) would moderate the increase in problem use. But the higher the taxes and the tighter the regulations (e.g, on sales to minors) the more illegal activity, and the more need for enforcement, somewhat reducing the benefits of legalization in reduced illicit enterprise and enforcement. (There are more arrests every year for breaking alcohol laws than for breaking marijuana laws.)
Legalization would also increase consumer choice and free marijuana users from the stigma of illegality and the risk of arrest.
The effects of legal cannabis on heavy alcohol use are unknown.
You might want to add some other results to this list, but, roughly speaking, that’s the situation: the status quo has some very undesirable features; legalization would moderate some of them while aggravating others; and the details of the post-legalization regime would be important in determining the size of those changes. Even if you knew those details, the quantitative results are not easy to predict, and there’s no obvious way to assign benefit-cost weights to, e.g., increased substance abuse against increased consumers’ surplus and reduced arrest counts.
But a TV booker asked to put together a show on marijuana legalization is likely to take the easy way out: find a legalizer to assure you that legality reduces addictive risk and a drug warrior to warn you that “marijuana destroys the brain” and invite them to go at the question. There’s no room nuance, or for expertise.
I don’t think the de facto legalization we have in most California cities really reduced the stigma of cannabis use. I still would not discuss my use in public or polite company.
Now the stigma was fairly small here to begin with, but legalization may have greater effects on attitude in Oklahoma.
Right! Details matter, and many of them are unknown. That’s why dogmatism is unjustified.
[...] I saw just today. Some more information on the current state of marijuana addiction in the United States and a summary of the main issues [...]
I really don’t quite get this line of argument insofar as it refers to policy rather than social science. We are not talking policies to bring us to utopia.
Innocent people have been killed in botched drug raids. Lives have been ruined by incarceration for things our President did as a young man- and had he been apprehended he would most likely not be President today – or a Senator, or even possibly a law professor. We saw what happened with Doug Ginsburg and the Supreme Court. Prices are artificially high, bringing in gang activity and the violence that follows. Innocents are often caught in this violence. In the 60s it was a common joke that stoned hippies did not get involved in fights whereas drunk frat boys often did. I haven’t read the literature, but to my experience marijuana does not encourage people to become more violent, from all I’ve seen for 50 years it makes them less so.
Marijuana users use it by their own choice. The damage it causes, if it causes any, is focused on the user. I smoked plenty in the 60s and hardly touch the stuff today. The same holds for most I know of my generation. Some abuse it I guess, though the regular users I know include retired scientists, engineers, and other highly successful professionals. But to my mind abusing it is better than innocent deaths by far.
I am 100% sympathetic with your take on keeping corporations out of marketing it. Decriminalization with no advertizing allowed and no suppliers larger than a small outfit would be ideal to my mind. But when I think of the lives ruined by the drug war the perfect becomes the enemy of the good.
To refer to even harder stuff, many years ago I tried heroin twice. I sat in a corner and spun a little shiny chain. I came away from those experiences thinking- if there is NOTHING to look forward to in your life, this is pretty nice. The solution for many potential addicts it seemed to me, and still does, is improve the prospects for their lives – most likely will make the same choice I did. Yes, some may have a biological predillection to addiction, but if it happens, they can get treatment without fear.
I really do not get how humane people can still prefer the status quo over even a measure as flawed as simple legalization and letting the ‘miracle of the market’ decide what happens. The libertarians are wrong in my opinion, but not nearly so wrong as those who in their opposition to them prefer the status quo.
How many people die from botched police raids of marijuana operations relative to lung disease from chronic marijuana use, or compared to accidents caused by cannaboid inebriation?
It it is possible for high IQ, unimpulsive people like you, myself and your retired scientist friend to enjoy recreational chemicals prudently and in controlled moderation. I think you strongly underestimate though the frequency and the harm of heavy daily use of more vulnerable groups.
I would rather your vulnerable groups fall prey to their intrinsic vulnerability while pursuing pleasure than to the police for it. Arrow’s Theorem applies here … There is no way to perfectly translate a ranking of policy preferences for each of us into one list for the country. So let’s choose the one that doesn’t involve shredding the constitution, epic widespread corruption, and frequent police violence and widespread race-based policing.
How many innocent people should die before you regard their death total as too high to justify protecting a number of other people from possible death from their own foolishness? Give me wither a number or a principle please.
Wouldn’t the decriminalization in Portugal and The Netherlands provides one guidance on the mix of alcohol and cannabis?
You would find out the ground-level effects…
No personal experience to speak from. It does seem to me that the number of lives ruined through criminal prosecution outweighs the alternative societal costs that legalization might cause.
[...] a bit bugged by his attitude toward legalizers. Even when he’s talking sanity, he’s making it clear that he hates people who go too far on legalization. Obviously, everybody disagrees with those who go farther than them in either direction, but why [...]
Is this supposed to tempt me to click to your site?
Here’s an idea: If what you write there isn’t worth repeating here, it probably isn’t worth reading at all.
Everyone dances around the main point that, in my view, destroys professor Kleiman’s argument. Which is: it is not reasonable to balance the harms caused by legalization vs. criminalization because they are fundamentally different in nature. Under criminalization, the harms are almost entirely imposed on individuals by others acting against the will of the person being harmed. Under legalization, the harms are almost entirely incurred voluntarily by the person experiencing the harm. I realize the exceptions and the subtleties to these general rules, so you need not go into it. No one is ever going to convince me that they do not hold as a general matter. The vast majority of damage caused by marijuana use is to the user, who was not forced to smoke it. Pot smokers don’t want to go to jail. We force them to. Therefore, unless the harms caused by the voluntary acts vastly and decisively outweigh the harms caused by the involuntary acts, (which even Dr. Kleiman would agree they do not), then we should always favor the voluntary harms of legalization to the involuntary harms of prohibition.
Yep, prohibition harms all of us (both users and non-users.
“I unhesitatingly contend that those who recognize existing evils and sincerely endeavor to correct them are contributing more toward temperance than those who stubbornly refuse to admit the facts.”
“The opposition always proceeds on the theory that give them time and they will stop the habit of indulging in intoxicating beverages. This can not be accomplished. We should recognize our problem is not to persist in the impossible, but to recognize a situation and bring about common-sense temperance through reason.”
“This is not a campaign to bring back intoxicating liquor, as is so often claimed by the fanatical dry. Intoxicating liquor is with us to-day and practically as accessible as it ever was. The difference mainly because of its illegality, is its greater destructive power, as evidenced on every hand. The sincere advocates of prohibition welcome efforts for real temperance rather than a continuation of the present bluff.”
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/walteredge.htm
And here is Julien Codman’s testimony, who was a member of the Massachusetts bar.
“we will produce additional evidence on this point, that it is not appropriate legislation to enforce the eighteenth amendment; that it has done incredible harm instead of good; that as a temperance measure it has been a pitiable failure; that it has failed to prevent drinking; that it has failed to decrease crime; that, as a matter of fact, it has increased both; that it has promoted bootlegging and smuggling to an extent never known before”
“We believe that the time has come for definite action, but it is impossible to lay before Congress any one bill which, while clearly within the provisions of the Constitution, will be a panacea for the evils that the Volstead Act has caused. We must not be vain enough to believe, as the prohibitionists do, that the age-old question of the regulation of alcohol can be settled forever by the passage of a single law. With the experience of the Volstead law as a warning, it behooves us to proceed with caution, one step at a time, to climb out of the legislative well into which we have been pushed.”
“Evidence provides no indication that decriminalization leads to a measurable increase in marijuana use.”
— Boston University Department of Economics
“There is little evidence that decriminalization of marijuana use necessarily leads to a substantial increase in marijuana use.”
— National Academy of Sciences
“The preponderance of the evidence which we have gathered and examined points to the conclusion that decriminalization has had virtually no effect either on the marijuana use or on related attitudes and beliefs about marijuana use among American young people.”
— The University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research
“The Dutch experience, together with those of a few other countries with more modest policy changes, provides a moderately good empirical case that removal of criminal prohibitions on cannabis possession (decriminalization) will not increase the prevalence of marijuana or any other illicit drug; the argument for decriminalization is thus strong.”
— British Journal of Psychiatry
Haven’t you been criticized by our hosts for posting exactly this post or something very similar elsewhere on this site? It is not appropriate to attribute an author’s, or a group of authors’, remarks to their institution or the publication for which they are writing.
For the record, note that I largely agree with you on the policy.
Agree with the above — just repasting and reposting diatribes isn’t discussion. It’s tedious. Cut it out please or take it to DrugWarRant where it belongs.
Since 1996, California, home to 12% of the country’s population, has moved from total prohibition of marijuana to effective legalization for any adult willing to pay $50 for a physician’s recommendation. There is now a retail marijuana industry in which competing businesses employ advertising and reduced pricing in order to increase market share. However, I’ve yet to see any documentation of net harm to public health arising from marijuana’s changed legal status.
According to data from SAMHSA, California saw 172,000 substance abuse treatment admissions in 1996, of which just under 40,000 listed either “alcohol” or “alcohol with secondary drug” as their primary substance of abuse. In 2011, the total number of admissions was 158,000, with “alcohol” or “alcohol with secondary drug” accounting for roughly 35,0000. So, despite an 18% increase in the state’s population during this period, California experienced decreases in both substance abuse treatment admissions in general, and in admissions for alcohol abuse in particular. While these figures may not perfectly reflect reality, it’s fairly clear that substance abuse in California has not surged over the last sixteen years.
In what sense is it dogmatic to use fifteen years of data on the effects of quasi-legalization and extrapolate on the likely results of removing the $50 medical fig leag?
Data sources:
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ca96.htm
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ca11.htm
This data seems to me a pretty powerful case against Prof. Kleiman’s position. Yet I doubt he will change for the following reason:
Liberalism has fractured from its initial coherence into three broad strands today, the classical type that libertarians claim to be, the egalitarian types that push for more substantive equality in our society (I tend in that direction), and the managerial types who think people can be aided by experts who help them live their lives better than they could on their own.
It seems to me in this essay Kleiman is captivated by the third – that wise wonks and scholars design society for everyone’s good, with a check at the polls if they get out of line. It is this attachment to direction by experts that seems to immunize him against appreciating the hideous human costs of not ending the drug war except on his own ideal terms.
Maybe I am wrong, but that sure seems the tone of this piece he has written.
[...] reactions to the various legalization articles out over at The Reality Based Community. Mark Kleiman uses his usual “pox on both your houses” approach, convinced that his opinion is the one and only [...]
[...] [...]
The marijuana legalization research team at RAND, knowing much more, is much less confident.
Some of the richest corporations in the world will be impacted the hardest when people can grow their own sleep aid in their yard,,it is non-toxic and has never caused a single death,,but the cops sure have,,,so please,,do not quote Rand to America,,they are a non-profit research organization boarded by Pharmaceutical corporation board members,,,the very people that want marijuana kept illegal.
That would be like asking a congressman to vote on a salary cut for himself.
I’m a little confused about how we are talking about the negative effects of marijuana. Aren’t we including negative effects like “risks jail time” and “will interfere with ability to get a job due to criminal record” that can go away with legalization? I’m of course not saying that marijuana use is completely benign, but most of the truly life crushing bits have to do with criminalization, not with innate properties of the drug. Yes legalization will probably increase use, but if you aren’t going to jail over it, or losing your job over non addicted home use, the negative effects don’t look so bad, right?
And not only that; prohibition simply puts us all in harms way:
“In the United States, drug arrests have tripled in the last 25 years, however most of these arrests have been for simple possession of low-level drugs. In 2005, nearly 43% of all drug arrests were for marijuana offenses. Marijuana possession arrests accounted for 79% of the growth in drug arrests in the 1990s. Nearly a half million people are in state or federal prisons or a local jail for a drug offense, compared to 41,000 in 1980. Most of these people have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity” – page 4
“With over 5 million people on probation or parole in the United States, drug use on parole or probation has become the primary basis by which thousands of people are returned to prison. These technical violations of parole or probation account for as many as 40% of new prison admissions in some jurisdictions.” – page 6
PROHIBITION IS A DIRECT THREAT TO PUBLIC SAFETY:
“The war on drugs has also generated indirect costs that many researchers contend have undermined public safety. The federal government has prioritized spending and grants for drug task forces and widespread drug interdiction efforts that often target low-level drug dealing. These highly organized and coordinated efforts have been very labor intensive for local law enforcement agencies with some unanticipated consequences for investigation of other crimes. The focus on drugs is believed to have redirected law enforcement resources that have resulted in more drunk driving, and decreased investigation and enforcement of violent crime laws. In Illinois, a 47% increase in drug arrests corresponded with a 22% decrease in arrests for drunk driving. Florida researchers have similarly linked the focus on low level drug arrests with an increase in the serious crime index.”
—Drug Policy, Criminal Justice and Mass Imprisonment, by Bryan Stevenson
http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Arquivos/Global_Com_Bryan_Stevenson.pdf
Note that, with legalization, all 4th Amendment concerns about work place drug testing would disappear. It would increase the ability of employers to conduct drug tests of their workers. So the employment based negative effects of marijuana use may well increase.
You seem to be bending yourself into a pretzel to find negativities to ending the drug war. Most employers would not care. If being stoned makes one seriously incapable of doing a job, and with such bad effects that firing after discovering their incompetence is not adequate, employers would still test. As they should.
Or do you have a problem with that?
Most employment drug screening is really only effective for finding marijuana in an applicant’s urine,,heroin,cocaine and meth are cleared in three days so the entire drug testing for workers safety is another sham bt the drug warriors,,it is just another ploy to persecute marijuana users. If it had been that important then OSHA would have required hair burn tests,,where other drug use shows for up to 3 months,,heroin,meth and cocaine included.
It’s really not that complicated. It boils down to this: To keep Cannabis illegal while tobacco and alcohol are freely available would be *MURDEROUSLY STUPID*. Any questions? Google “Tashkin Study”.