Marijuana Legalization

Acknowledgements ; Dedication ; Introduction ; PART I: MARIJUANA AND PROHIBITION TODAY ; 1. What is marijuana and what would it mean to legalize it? ; What is marijuana legalization? ; What is marijuana? ; How does it feel to get high? ; What are the active ingredients in marijuana? ; What are sinsemilla, "commercial grade" marijuana, ditchweed, and hash oil? ; Has marijuana been getting stronger? ; Is higher potency bad? ; Does increasing potency argue against legalization, or for it? ; How long does intoxication last? ; For how long can marijuana use be detected? ; Is medical marijuana the same as illegal marijuana? ; What is synthetic marijuana (Spice or K2)? ; 2. Who uses marijuana? ; How many people use marijuana? ; How is marijuana typically consumed? ; How has the nature of marijuana use changed over time? ; How much marijuana do users consume? ; Can marijuana use lead to dependence or addiction? ; What are the typical patterns of marijuana use? ; How common is heavy marijuana use? ; How does marijuana use vary across the country? ; What share of marijuana use is high-potency marijuana? ; How much do users spend on marijuana? ; 3. How is marijuana produced and distributed today? ; How and where is marijuana grown today? ; How is marijuana currently distributed? ; How much is marijuana marked up between farmgate, wholesale, and retail? ; Are prices lower in the Netherlands? California? Elsewhere? ; Since marijuana is just a plant, why is it so expensive? ; Is marijuana really the nation's leading cash crop? ; Does marijuana production really use $5 billion worth of electricity in the U.S. each year? ; 4. How stringent is marijuana enforcement in the U.S.? ; When did marijuana become illegal in the United States? ; Who gets arrested for marijuana possession? ; What happens after those arrests? ; Who gets arrested for marijuana dealing, production, and importing? ; Are federal marijuana sentences similar to sentences for cocaine and heroin? ; How many people are in prison for marijuana offenses? ; How much does marijuana incarceration and enforcement cost? ; How much marijuana is seized and eradicated? ; 5. What are the risks of using marijuana? ; Why is it difficult to measure the consequences of marijuana use? ; How do researchers study the risks of marijuana use? ; What is the likelihood of becoming dependent on marijuana? ; How bad is marijuana dependency compared to dependency on other drugs? ; Do users seek treatment for problems with marijuana? ; Does marijuana treatment work? ; Can users experience a fatal overdose from marijuana? ; Can users experience a non-fatal overdose from using too much marijuana? ; Does marijuana use cause emphysema and other respiratory problems? ; Does smoking marijuana cause cancer? ; Are their second-hand smoke risks of marijuana? ; Is marijuana a "gateway drug"? ; Does using marijuana cause schizophrenia and other mental health problems? ; Does using marijuana influence crime and delinquency? ; Does marijuana use affect education and employment outcomes? ; Does marijuana use cause automobile crashes? ; Does parental marijuana use influence child welfare? ; 6. What is known about the non-medicinal benefits of using marijuana? ; Why don't we know more about the benefits of cannabis use? ; Would we know more about the benefits of cannabis if it were legal? ; Is there a "stoned" way of thinking? ; Is "stoned thinking" valuable? ; Does cannabis use enhance creativity? ; What role does cannabis play in worship? ; So there's no real evidence of any benefits? ; Why should mere pleasure count as a benefit? ; 7. What are the medicinal benefits of using marijuana? ; Does marijuana have medical value? ; Why isn't marijuana available as a regular prescription drug? ; But isn't smoking unhealthy? ; How about using one or more cannabinoids instead of the whole plant? ; How much "medical marijuana" use is actually medical? ; PART II: LEGALIZATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ; 8. What are the pros and cons of legalization generally? ; What does it mean to legalize a drug? ; Are there shades of legalization? ; Why have drug laws in the first place? ; Why even consider legalizing a substance whose use creates harm? ; Wouldn't the results of a policy that treated marijuana like alcohol be an improvement on the current mess? ; But wasn't alcohol prohibition in the United States a complete failure? ; But everyone knows that Prohibition led to a big increase in homicides. ; How much of the increase in consumption after legalization would reflect increased heavy use rather than increased casual use? ; Can't the effects of marketing be reined in by regulations and taxes? ; What about legal availability without free trade? Couldn't that work? ; Isn't it impossible to make someone better off by coercing behavioral change? If people want drugs, doesn't depriving them of drugs make them worse off by definition? ; If people choose to harm themselves with drugs, why is that anyone else's business? ; But isn't everyone with an addictive personality already addicted to something? ; If the results of legalization are uncertain, why not just try it out, and go back to the current system if legalization doesn't work? ; 9. How is legalization of marijuana different from legalization of other drugs? ; How does legalizing cannabis compare to legalizing all drugs? ; Isn't cannabis different from other drugs? It's natural, it's not addictive, and it's not toxic. ; If marijuana accounts for half of all drug arrests, would legalizing marijuana free up half our prison cells? ; How much drug-related crime, violence, and corruption would marijuana legalization eliminate? ; Would legalization increase marijuana use and dependence by as much as legalization of crack and other drugs would increase their markets? ; Would more marijuana use lead to more alcohol abuse, or less? ; If alcohol is more dangerous than cannabis, what's the logical justification for one being legal and the other illegal? ; Can it be sensible to support legalizing marijuana but not other drugs? ; Can two reasonable people sensibly disagree about marijuana legalization? ; 10. What is the context of the legalization debate? ; How does legalization differ from decriminalization or depenalization? ; How many countries allow commercial marijuana production? ; Has support for legalization in the U.S. been growing? ; Who supports and opposes marijuana legalization in the U.S.? ; Who supported Proposition 19 and why? ; Why are voters sometimes bolder than the people they elect? ; Would marijuana legalization violate international conventions? ; Does Dutch cannabis policy violate these international conventions? ; What are the consequences for violating international conventions? ; Could these international treaties be changed? ; 11. What if marijuana were treated like alcohol? ; What special regulations could apply to legal marijuana? ; Could advertising be restricted in the U.S.? ; How could marijuana be taxed? ; Would regulations and taxes in practice approach the public health ideal? ; How much enforcement would regulation and taxation require? ; Would there be any marijuana arrests after legalization? ; Why aren't prices in Dutch coffeeshops and California medical dispensaries a good indication of prices after legalization? ; How much would legal marijuana cost to produce? ; How many people would be employed in marijuana production? ; What would the pre-tax retail price be for unbranded marijuana? ; What would the after-tax retail price be for unbranded marijuana? ; What would the retail price be for branded and other forms of marijuana? ; Would businesses give legal marijuana away free? ; How much would consumption increase? ; Does the marijuana trade fund drug violence in Mexico? ; Does legalization make sense from an overall social welfare (benefit-cost) perspective? ; 12. Could one state in the U.S. legalize marijuana if the federal government didn't? ; Could a state simply repeal its marijuana laws? ; Could a state regulate and tax a substance that the federal government still prohibited? ; What about the reverse: If the Federal government legalized marijuana, could a state still prohibit it? ; What could the federal government do if one state legalizes marijuana for non-medical use? ; What is the federal government doing in states that allow medical marijuana? ; How would production and production costs change if marijuana were legal in one state but not the entire country? ; How would legalization in one state affect markets and use in other states? ; Does it matter whether legalization is by law or voter proposition? ; Could states learn from one another's experience? ; 13. How would marijuana legalization affect me personally? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm an adult regular marijuana user? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm dependent on marijuana? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm an occasional marijuana user? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm not currently a marijuana user? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm a medical marijuana patient? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm a marijuana grower? ; How would legalization affect me if I lead a Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO)? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm a parent of a teenager? ; How would legalization affect me if I'm an employer? ; 14. Between marijuana prohibition and commercial legalization: ; Is there any middle ground? ; Is there a middle-ground between legalization and prohibition? ; What has been learned from depenalization and decriminalization? ; What about legalizing the way Portugal did (not do)? ; What about imitating the Dutch approach? ; What about just allowing home production, as Alaska does? ; What about allowing user co-ops, as in Spain? ; What about a very liberal medical marijuana system? ; What about limiting the quantity any user can buy? ; Couldn't users go to physicians for non-medical cannabis, making it the doctor's business to prevent problem-use patterns? ; What if distribution were controlled by a government monopoly? ; 15. Can industrial hemp save the planet? (with Christina Farber) ; What is industrial hemp? ; Do other countries allow legalized hemp? ; Could the U.S. allow industrial hemp without legalizing marijuana? ; Would allowing industrial hemp in the U.S. save the planet? ; How big is the potential market if the U.S. legalized industrial hemp? ; 16. What do the authors think about marijuana legalization? ; Angela Hawken ; Jonathan Caulkins ; Mark Kleiman ; Beau Kilmer