Pubdate: Sat, 14 Feb 2015
Source: Middletown Press, The (CT)
Copyright: 2015 The Middletown Press
Contact:  http://www.middletownpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/586
Author: Susan Bigelow, CTNews Junkie.com
Note: Susan Bigelow is an awardwinning columnist and the founder of 
CTLocalPolitics. She lives in Enfield with her wife and their cats.

MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION IS WORTH A SHOT

Marijuana is now legal in several states out west, and the world has 
yet to end. Legalization brings revenue. Marijuana is now legal in 
several states out west, and the world has yet to end. That's part of 
why two Connecticut lawmakers, Reps. Edwin Vargas, D-Hartford, and 
Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, want to bring legalization east.

Is that a good idea? What will happen if we fully legalize marijuana?

Conventional wisdom on that breaks down into two camps: One side says 
that crime will go up, use will go up, and that all of this will pose 
a serious public health risk. The other says that legalization will 
save the government money, help keep people out of jail, and 
otherwise not make life too different.

Which is true: dystopia or pothead paradise? Well, like most things, 
the reality falls somewhere in the murky middle.

That legalization brings in revenue isn't in doubt. So far taxes on 
marijuana on Colorado have brought in more than $39 million in 
revenue, which, for a state staring at a deficit, is nothing to 
sneeze at. Other states are seeing similar windfalls.

However, as legalization becomes more common across the country  and 
there's no reason at this point to think it won't  these effects will 
start to diminish. This is sort of like gambling: it brought in a lot 
of revenue when Foxwoods was the only casino this side of New York 
City, but now that casinos are a lot more common, each new casino 
brings in less and less. So sure, the state will get some money, but 
it may be less than we think.

What about use going up? Based on experiences following the 
intermediate steps of medical marijuana and marijuana 
decriminalization  which made it so that possessing a small amount of 
marijuana would be punishable by a relatively small fine instead of 
much larger fines and jail time  it's not abundantly clear that 
marijuana use rates would go up significantly, if at all.

As for crime, at least one report suggests that crime rates went up 
after medical marijuana legalization and/or decriminalization, though 
it's not clear why that happened. But Colorado reports after one year 
of legalization that violent crime rates are actually down, as are 
traffic fatalities. These look like continuations of ongoing trends, 
which means that in one state, at least, the immediate effects were 
almost negligible.

What about health effects, though? The National Institute on Drug 
Abuse says that marijuana has a "wide range of effects, particularly 
on cardiopulmonary and mental health." A 2014 meta-study published in 
the New England Journal of Medicine does suggest that some of these 
health risks are reasonably well-documented, but that there are 
plenty of "confounding factors" that make assessing the severity of 
those risks difficult. The science seems to boil down to the 
following: marijuana is definitely harmful, but we're still not 
certain just how harmful it is.

So we're left with frustrating uncertainty. Public opinion actually 
favors legalization, but the governor has said that he won't sign a 
legalization bill. Would it really be worth trying to change his mind 
if there isn't a clear answer one way or the other?

I think it is, for a couple of reasons.

First, let's admit it: Lots of people in this state smoke pot, and 
for the most part they get it from illicit dealers. Naturally, 
there's no regulation of their products. Because of that, over the 
past decades we've seen a rise in the psychoactive ingredient THC 
(Tetrahydrocannabinol) content of marijuana from 3 percent in 1980 to 
about 12 percent today. The various studies out there suggest that 
the dangers of marijuana increase as the THC percentage goes up. 
Trying to get people to stop using marijuana hasn't been effective, 
and neither has trying to stop the production and trafficking of the 
drug. Doesn't it make sense to try and at least make it safer?

It also makes sense to bring marijuana use and sale out of the 
shadows. If someone you love is going to use marijuana anyway, 
wouldn't you rather they acquired it safely?

We have such a strange relationship with various drugs, both legal 
and not. A lot of us drink alcohol or smoke tobacco cigarettes, for 
instance. In both of those cases, the government and public health 
advocates have opted to try and educate the public, regulate the sale 
and composition of tobacco and alcohol, and impose significant "sin 
taxes" instead of banning them. Maybe that's the way to go here.

It's not a perfect solution, to be sure. But our current drug 
policies don't work at all. Let's use our common sense and give these 
bills the consideration they deserve.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom