After Colorado and Washington legalized the possession and consumption of cannabis in 2012, prohibition supporters proffered their usual doomsday prophecies replete with arguments about increased youth consumption, more deaths on the roads and increased crime, and especially increased crime at marijuana distributing businesses. Despite all the panic from prohibition supporters about marijuana legalization, the sky hasn’t fallen yet, and none of their fears have materialized. Rather, both states are enjoying remarkable benefits subsequent to the decision to legalize.
One of the most frequent charges against marijuana legalization has been that it would cause consumption among teenagers to skyrocket. However, a recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health analyzed data compiled from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavioral Survey spanning a period of 20 years; it compared anonymous, self-reported rates of use in states that have legalized medical marijuana with states that have a policy of complete prohibition. According to the study’s abstract, there were “no statistically significant differences in marijuana use before and after policy change for any state pairing.”
The conclusion that marijuana legalization does not correlate with higher rates of teenage consumption was replicated in a study published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management by Montana State University economist D. Mark Anderson and University of Colorado economist Daniel Rees. After analyzing the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 1993 through 2011, they found “little evidence of a relationship between legalizing medical marijuana and the use of marijuana among high school students.” This may be because, whereas legal marijuana retailers card all customers to ensure that they are at least 21 years old, black-market dealers lack the incentive to do so.
And even Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, who previously opposed legalization, now agrees with the conclusions of this mounting evidence. When asked in a Reuters interview back in 2012 whether there is “any evidence that it’s easier for underage kids to get marijuana than six months ago,” he replied: “No, we haven’t seen that….One of the reasons so many people voted to legalize it was [that] it’s been pretty easy to get it for decades.”
Additionally, critics have assailed this dramatic policy change by contending that it would lead to blood on the streets; for example, John Mica, FL (Rep.) argued in a congressional hearing in August that “In the last dozen years we’ve had [half] a million Americans slaughtered on the highways…and half of those fatalities are related to people who [were] impaired through alcohol or drugs.” He continued by arguing that marijuana legalization would only compound this “phenomenal devastation.”
However, a study published in 2013 in the Journal of Law and Economics analyzed the relationship between medical marijuana legalization and traffic fatalities and completely refutes this. Professors Mark Anderson, Benjamin Hansen and Daniel Rees found that in “the first full year after coming into effect, legalization is associated with an 8-11 percent decrease in traffic fatalities.” Anderson et al. also found that legalization was associated with a sharp decrease in alcohol consumption; thus, the authors attributed the sharp decrease in traffic fatalities to individuals substituting alcohol with marijuana.
In a follow-up piece in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Anderson and Rees concluded that “studies based on clearly defined natural experiments generally support the hypothesis that marijuana and alcohol are substitutes,” which would suggest that public health and reduction in crime rates would occur after legalization.
Finally, fears that legalization would cause increased burglaries and robberies at marijuana retailers are wholly unfounded; figures from the Colorado Department of Safety indicate that the frequency of burglaries and robberies at dispensaries has actually declined since legalization. Furthermore, FBI data indicates that the overall crime rates in Denver, the epicenter of marijuana, declined by 10 percent in the first five months of this year, as opposed to the same period in 2013, although attributing this to marijuana legalization is dubious at best due to the dozens of other possible variables.
In sum, it appears that the apocalyptic fears that the panicked prohibitionist supporters offered regarding the legalization of marijuana have failed to emerge. Rather, a plethora of research indicates that marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington has been a success story. As such, other states would be wise to legalize marijuana.