I was in Boulder, Colorado earlier this week. When casually talking to locals the inevitable came up: in just a few weeks, Washington State and Colorado will be the first states in the union to allow marijuana to be sold like alcohol.
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Now, nothing makes me happier than when facts trump assumptions. It’s just one of the many obnoxious, nerdy aspect of my personality. So, when I saw this in the paper this morning, my interest was piqued:
California Finds Fears Unfounded With Cannabis Use: California’s experience as the first state to legalize medical marijuana offers surprising lessons, experts say.
[A]t a time when polls show widening public support for legalization…California’s 17-year experience as the first state to legalize medical marijuana offers surprising lessons, experts say.
Warnings voiced against partial legalization — of civic disorder, increased lawlessness and a drastic rise in other drug use — have proved unfounded.
Instead, research suggests both that marijuana has become an alcohol substitute for younger people here and in other states that have legalized medical marijuana, and that while driving under the influence of any intoxicant is dangerous, driving after smoking marijuana is less dangerous than after drinking alcohol.
Although marijuana is legal here only for medical use, it is widely available. There is no evidence that its use by teenagers has risen since the 1996 legalization, though it is an open question whether outright legalization would make the drug that much easier for young people to get, and thus contribute to increased use.
And though Los Angeles has struggled to regulate marijuana dispensaries, with neighborhoods upset at their sheer number, the threat of unsavory street traffic and the stigma of marijuana shops on the corner, communities that imposed early and strict regulations on their operations have not experienced such disruption.
Imposing a local tax on medical marijuana, as Oakland, San Jose and other communities have done, has not pushed consumers to drug dealers as some analysts expected. Presumably that is because it is so easy to get reliable and high-quality marijuana legally.
Finally, for consumers, the era of legalized medical marijuana has meant an expanded market and often cheaper prices.
Following upon on the contrast between Los Angeles and other cities:
In Los Angeles, repeated attempts to regulate the stores have failed, causing an uproar in quiet neighborhoods like Larchmont and Mar Vista. Yet there is a lesson here: San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, which imposed strict regulations on the shops from the start, have had few problems.
“Those cities really took charge in 1996, saying: ‘We have to figure out how we are going to regulate this. We need to figure out how marijuana could be sold, how it will be regulated, what it will mean for tax revenue,’ ” Ms. Reiman said. “As a result, those three cities have seen little to no issues in terms of crime or public safety issues.”
Naturally, despite evidence to the contrary, there are still opposing voices…just another case of The Backfire Effect, “When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.”