Selective Legalization Is an Approach That Would Legalize the Drugs

Second, our research approach takes into account the possibility raised by Cheng and colleagues [4, 5] with respect to alcohol and by Montgomery, Vsevolozhskaya & Anthony with respect to cannabis [6]. That said, there could be a large pool of law-abiding people who would never have used cannabis if retail had not been authorized, but who try cannabis as soon as it becomes legal for them. Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) is leading the search for smart, effective and less punitive strategies to prevent marijuana use and prevent a new large marijuana industry focused on public health. Below, SAM co-founder Kevin Sabet, PhD, presents the false dichotomy of legalization and criminalization: The psychological effects of smoked cannabis include mental slowness, “relaxation,” fatigue, euphoria, and some users report anxiety and paranoia. Prevalences are estimated as p1 = Xr/N, where N is the projected total population size and the estimated proportion of the population at risk (p2 = No/N) with corresponding standard errors. The proportions of newly occurring cannabis use are estimated by p1 and p2 as follows: Many of the same mutagens and carcinogens found in tobacco smoke are also found in marijuana smoke.11 Smoking marijuana has been shown to reduce lung function, cause chronic coughing, airway inflammation and abnormal cell growth that may precede the onset of cancer.12 The International Center for Cancer research noted that: epidemiological data on the increased risk of cancer associated with cannabis use compared to tobacco smokers were inconclusive.13 Unlike tobacco, damage to marijuana-smoking lungs is not reversed by abstinence.14 Recent meta-analyses support the hypothesis that cannabis use causally contributes to the increased risk of developing schizophrenia. In a comprehensive and systematic meta-analysis, Moore et al.37 determined whether cannabis use causally contributes to the development of non-substantial psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and mood disorders. The study was designed to address, to the extent possible, two of the most important methodological problems in studying the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis: 1) the potential for reverse causality (where psychosis causes cannabis use and not the other way around) and 2) the transient effects of intoxication (which are misinterpreted as psychosis as a false positive error). The results showed that the risk of psychosis in cannabis users was increased by approximately 40% (pooled adjusted OR: 1.41). The results were not as impressive for mood disorders. A dose-response effect was observed in users, with the risk more than doubling in the most frequent users (OR = 2.1). For cannabis and psychosis, there was evidence of confusing effects, but associations persisted in almost all studies, even after adjusting for full lists of variables.

The authors concluded that “there is now sufficient evidence to warn youth that cannabis use may increase their risk of developing psychotic illness later in life” (page 319). These results show consistent evidence of an increase in the incidence of cannabis use among adults aged 21 years and older following the lifting of the cannabis retail ban. For 12- to 20-year-olds, the study estimates support the hypothesis that CSF did not influence the frequency of cannabis use among minors. In simple 2×2 DiD models, we estimate an average increase in the incidence of cannabis use of 0.7 percentage points after the legal sale of recreational cannabis in 2019, nearly double the difference between these groups of states prior to legalization. In addition to the event study estimates of change in each time interval, we also present a 2×2 simple DiD estimate of ATT as a summary of the estimated effect on individuals aged 21 years and older in all years following legalization by 2019 and an average treatment effect using the same method for 12 to 20 year olds. This estimate is derived from the same equation, where the dummates from the event study were replaced by a single status indicator after policy changes. The following film, Chronic State by DrugFree Idaho, documents the impact of marijuana legalization and normalization on local communities: We categorized states into different analysis groups based on each state`s legalization year through 2018. Since the 2018-2019 vintage is the latest data available in R-DAS at the time of the analysis, states that legalized cannabis in 2019 or later were placed in the control group where retail cannabis remained illegal.