On May 4th Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he plans to legalize recreational marijuana starting next year.

The Case For Legalization

Ten states and Washington D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana. Canada legalized marijuana years ago and Mexico announced plans to legalize marijuana by October of 2019.

Strawman Costs

  1. Stoned Drivers
    1. The driving death rate increased in Colorado and Washington after legalization. But driving death rates are also now higher in states that prohibit marijuana. Remember, cherrypicking data to push your beliefs is bad journalism.
    2. Marijuana stays in one’s system for as long as months at a time, long after the high wears off. Just because marijuana was in a driver’s system during a wreck doesn’t mean he was high at that time.
    3. The solution to policing high driving is the same as drunk drivers. Set a high limit similar to the .08 limit for driving. There’s one problem: THC blood levels don’t correspond directly to levels of impairments. So how do you measure impairment?
    4. DRUID: a modern solution for modern problems
      1. While I was covering the legalization of marijuana in Michigan, Michael Milburn, Harvard Ph.D and the CEO of DRUID (DRiving Under Influence of Drugs), reached out to me.
      2. “No one should drive impaired, but actual impairment should be measured, and the level of impairment from cannabis that is criminalized should be the same as the level of impairment for the .08 blood alcohol level,” he said.
      3. He developed a smartphone app that measures impairment in 2 minutes using reaction time, decision making, hand-eye coordination, time estimation and balance, and then statistically integrates hundreds of data points into an overall impairment score. Then it’s up to you to decide to drive or not.
      4. Milburn recently acquired a $1.7 million grant from NIH.
  2. Crime
    1. Colorado’s crime rate did rise after legalization, but many things affect the crime rate. Correlation is not causation. You must break crime by category and determine if it’s violent crime or victimless crimes. For example, even legal weed can land you in jail. 40% of New York’s parolees are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses such as failing drug tests. 926 people were arrested in D.C in 2017 for cannabis related crimes, up 36% from 2016. One of the biggest reasons was for public consumption at festivals and housing. But this charge targets the ethnicities disproportionately. The U.S Census Burea recorded 91% of cannabis users arrested in 2017 were African American, with 4% rates for Hispanics and Caucasians. This isn’t a violent crime and shouldn’t be counted the same as a murder.
  3. “Protect the Children”
    1. One of the oldest excuses against legalization is to prevent children (under 21) from smoking marijuana. But teen marijuana use has dropped in every state in which it’s legalized. The novelty of marijuana wore off when similar laws were applied to marijuana as to alcohol such as enforcing age restrictions.
    2. Prohibition has never worked. Whether it’s alcohol or marijuana, people get what they want. 45% of those arrested for cannabis crimes aged from 21-29 with less than 15% of those arrested being under 21. You can’t solve problems by banning things. One survey found teens could access marijuana easier than alcohol.
  4. “Causes sharp increases in Murder and Aggravated Assault”
    1. The former New York Times writer Alex Berenson wrote Tell Your Children: The Truth about Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence, which had one point: marijuana leads to an increase in violent crime.
    2. When my Alma Mater invited him to speak at our school and print his argument in Imprimis, they refused my offer to print an opposing opinion. Much like Hillsdale’s decision, Berenson cherrypicks data out of context, refuses to investigate anything countering his beliefs, and confused correlation for causation.
    3. Berenson says that the first four states to legalize marijuana saw an increase in violent crime since 2014. Echoed by NY Times writer Jesse Singal, the years Berenson chose from his data doesn’t match. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana in 2012. Why didn’t crime spike then? The national crime rate in 2014 coincided with the lowest national crime rate since the 1960s. If more people are smoking marijuana now, then Berenson’s claims fall short. The author is claiming that since these events happened near each other, they must have caused each other. That’s poor logic.
    4. If people who smoke marijuana became violent, it would show in states that legalized medicinal marijuana. No such thing exists.

Real Costs

  1. Unknown long-term effects
    1. Since marijuana is a Schedule 1 substance (along with heroin and meth), meaning they have a high abuse potential and no medical use (even for states with medical marijuana), we haven’t studied long-term effects of its usage.
  2. Logrolling
    1. Legalizing marijuana will bring mass amounts of revenue. Government will want to give licenses to their favorites, such as how the U.S government contracts with Boeing may have caused them to skirt 737 regulations resulting in more than 4 crashes in the last month.
  3. Unequal treatment
    1. While I worked at a courthouse, I saw a man the same age as me sentenced to prison for  marijuana violation that was revoked that day. Meaning, he was sentenced for a law that no longer existed. Many people are serving time for marijuana possession in states that are now recreational. People are now profiting off marijuana, while others are imprisoned for selling it just months before.
  4. More people smoking
    1. Adults make their own decisions, for better or worse. Legalized marijuana may lead to more people smoking it. While the stereotype of the couch-potatoe stoner is being disproven, you probably know someone who smokes marijuana and lacks motivation.
  5. Substance abuse

Almost any substance can be abused. But the drug you abuse doesn’t have to negatively affect you; it’s as simple as using a drug, whether marijuana or alcohol, to escape your problems. In the words of J-Cole, “Without the drugs, I want you to be comfortable in your skin… You running from yourself and you buying product again, I know you say it helps and I’m not trying to offend, But I know depression and drug addiction don’t blend… One thing about your demons they bound to catch up one day, I’d rather see you stand up and face them than run away.. Meditate, don’t medicate.”

  1. Prohibition Costs
    1. Unlike other illicit drugs, it’s impossible to overdose on pot. Banning marijuana sales endangers buyers because criminals are more likely to settle their disputes with guns rather than dispensaries.
    2. When police focus their work on nonviolent crimes, ugly thing happen. Alabama Police raided a couple’s house for $50 of marijuana, but also seized their life savings along with the few grams of pot. After countersuing, the police dropped the charges. They refused to return the money, and the incident shut down their small business.

Benefits

  1. Tax Revenue
    1. Legal marijuana across the U.S. could generate more than $132 billion in federal tax revenue and over 1 million jobs. Oregon had $777.6 million in cannabis sales since legalization.
    2. You should never take an action just because it “creates jobs and tax revenues”. This is the same trap nationalists fall into when imposing tariffs on foreign products to protect domestic jobs. Tariffs raise domestic prices.
    3. The government doesn’t spend money well. Their spending is based on their revenue, so they have to spend their entire budget so it won’t be cut next year. The government spent $50 billion in contract work just in the last seven days of the fiscal year 2017.
    4. In 2018 the Pentagon spent $32,000 for 25 cups of coffee, coming out to about $1,280 per cup of coffee.
    5. From 2004-2017 20 government agencies spent $1.2 trillion in mistakes in improper payments.
    6. The State Department bought $79,000 of alcohol in six days in Sept. 2017 for their embassies.
    7. In 2015 the National Science Foundation spent $1 million to answer the study, “Where does it hurt the most to be stung by a bee?”.
    8. From 2006-2017 non-military agencies spent $2.2 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-grade weapons.
    9. In 2015 the federal government spent $5 million on “hipster parties.”
    10. The Army spent $6,600 on fidget-spinners and $35,000 on one arcade machine.
    11. Colorado and other states earmarked the tax revenue: in 2017 $94 million funded schools and scholarships. This is a slippery slope because funding per student doesn’t necessarily correlate with student improvement.
    12. The legal market price for marijuana can’t be taxed too much or it will drive users back to the black market.

Law Must Reflect Public Opinion

The most important of legalizing marijuana isn’t deciding what the tax revenue funds or at what age people are allowed to smoke. It’s ensuring public opinion reflects the rule of law. In The Use of Knowledge in Society, Hayek argues that enforcing arbitrary laws decimates the relation between citizens and the law. If people regularly drive 70 mph on roads with 55 mph speed limits, the rule of law is broken. Vague laws invite the exercise of arbitrary power by leaving those arrested in the dark about what the law demands and allows prosecutors and courts to make it up.

⅔ of Americans support recreational marijuana. The rule of law is broken when 20 states allow legal marijuana while the same actions can get you sentenced to prison.