Started reading a very detailed article on the “dangers” of marijuana use. While some of the article wandered aimlessly through typical conservative angst over the problems associated with marijuana use, the article (by Jonathan Caulkins), published in the conservative rag, National Affairs, did contain a few nuggets worthy of anyone interested in the future, the inevitable legalization of marijuana for recreational use.
The article’s key points are based on his analysis of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Here are a few of the most interesting tidbits of of knowledge pulled from the data:
The custom is to define "current" users as those who report consumption within the last 30 days. The surveys estimate that 20 million Americans admit to past-month use. … 4.2 million people are estimated to meet the criteria for marijuana abuse or dependence, there is one such person for every 4.8 current users. Or, expressing the ratio the other way around, 21% of current users meet diagnostic criteria.
...
137 million people self-report current alcohol use, and 17.3 million describe enough problems to meet the criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence, equivalent to one instance of alcohol abuse or dependence per 7.9 current users, or 13% of current users
...
One could speculate that legalization might make marijuana abuse and dependence less common, because generally healthy people will start to use occasionally, and that influx could dilute the proportion who abuse or are dependent. But one could just as easily speculate that legalization will bring more marketing, more potent products (like "dabs"), or products that are more pleasant to use (like "vaping" pens), any of which could increase the risk that experimenting could progress to problematic use. This is all speculation, of course. But what can be said empirically is that, within the context of aggregate use in the United States at this time, the best available data suggest that marijuana creates abuse and dependence at higher rates than does alcohol.
Before we get too fired up over his point, here, he makes it clear that alcohol has plenty of other negatives such as potential death from overdose and an increased tendency toward physically aggressive behavior. So, the author doesn’t latch onto this point with the ferociousness of a pit bull, using it as yet another conservative argument against legalization.
Instead he acknowledges that legalization is inevitable, noting
Among my colleagues, the consensus is that, at present, the odds seem better than even that within 15 or 20 years the federal government and most U.S. states will have legalized marijuana production and sale, even if some states remain "dry.”
While the Jeff Sessions’ of the world will rail against the devil weed, Caulkins prefers a more rational approach. He sums up the impacts of adding yet another legal drug to our entertainment arsenal (emphasis added).
Marijuana has four defining characteristics that make dealing with it difficult from a policy standpoint. First, it is a performance degrader. …
Second, it is dependence-inducing. Marijuana is not crack, but marijuana dependence is nonetheless a real and not-uncommon consequence of prolonged use. This challenges the usual free-market presumption that consumers reliably maximize their welfare, particularly given that the vast majority of users start using before they are adults.
Third, marijuana is, for the most part, not directly harmful to third parties. …
And fourth, its health harms are, for the most part, minor.
At the end of the article, he provides a highly cogent discussion of options, promoting evidence-based analysis to inform policy, to structure legalization in a way that minimizes negative consequences.
… the paucity of third-party harms or "externalities" undermines the standard justification for government intervention. A modern secular state does not arbitrarily declare some items to be forbidden and others to be halal or kosher. …
Marijuana is likewise no ordinary commodity but a temptation good that society should tolerate grudgingly. There are many ways of putting that philosophy into practice. One way is to start by restricting production and distribution to non-profits or for-benefit corporations whose charters mandate that they merely meet existing demand, not pursue unfettered market growth to maximize shareholders' returns and owners' wealth. It would also be wise to require these organizations' boards to be dominated by public-health and child-welfare advocates. Furthermore, regulatory authority should be put in the hands of agencies like the FDA whose loyalties are to the public welfare, not industry, and who maintain a healthy suspicion toward industry motives and practices.
As someone who “tried it” in my (very long) lifetime, I agree with the pragmatic conclusion that legalizing marijuana makes sense in our society. Although I have no personal dog in this fight (don't expect to become a user even if it is legalized), I believe the harm done by prosecuting users or even low level dealers for something this innocuous does more harm than good.
But when we do, lets consider the kind of measured steps proposed by experts to avoid rabid commercialization that can drag even more unsuspecting users into dependence.
While researching his previous works, I ran across this — another interesting, pragmatic take on how to deal with drug crime:
The US has increased incarceration for drug-law violations literally tenfold since 1980 – without achieving more than temporary increases in prices. There would be little lost by halving the average sentence length for easy-to-replace functionaries within the drug distribution system (lookouts, typical retail sellers, hired hands, etc). It would also spare the public the enormous human and social costs of mass incarceration.
I guess even those writing for conservative rags have something worth listening to from time to time.