The Atlantic: Legal Weed Not Living Up to its Promises

Nearly half of states have legalized marijuana use in one form or another. Colorado and Washington State were the first to legalize cannabis more than a dozen years ago. In the years since, 22 other states followed suit. There are a variety of reasons. Too many people were being sent to prison for selling relatively small amounts of marijuana, draining state budgets. There are other legal and illegal intoxicants consumers could buy, some worse than others. Another reason is that illegal drug sales enrich criminal elements, the way prohibition turned organized crime from petty criminals into big business. Also, tax dollars. States thought they could make money on the deal. Writing in The Atlantic, Professor Jonathan Caulkins claims legal weed didn’t deliver on its promises, saying:

The shift was viewed in many quarters as benign and overdue—involving an organic, even medicinal, intoxicant with no serious drawbacks. Advocates promised safe and accurately labeled products, reduced addiction to opioids, smaller prison populations, surging tax revenue, and a socially responsible industry that prioritized people over profits. But all of those promises have turned out to be overstated or simply wrong.

The Atlantic (whose writers I always assumed smokes weed) reports legalization boosted cannabis consumption significantly (why would anyone think otherwise?). Supposedly 30 years ago people who smoked cannabis only smoked it occasionally, maybe on weekends with friends. Only about 2.5 million people admitted to smoking it daily or near daily around the year 2000. As of 2022 the number of daily users had increased by six times. Supposedly slightly more people use cannabis daily than drink alcohol daily. 

But by 2022, that had grown sevenfold to 17.7 million. Remarkably, that’s more than the 14.7 million who reported using alcohol that often. Today, more than 40 percent of Americans who use cannabis take it daily or near-daily, and these users consume perhaps 80 percent of all the cannabis sold in the U.S.

I tend to doubt that daily alcohol use is lower than daily cannabis use, but I can believe that 40% of cannabis users consume 80% of the product. It’s even worse with respect to alcohol consumption. About 20% of drinkers consume 90% of alcohol consumed. 

Caulkins also explains that the potency has risen since the days of clandestine grow houses in the 1980’s. A guy who smokes cannabis daily today gets about 70 times the THC per week as someone only smoking a couple of joints on weekends forty years ago.

And over the long term, although some people can handle a wake-and-bake lifestyle, just like some alcoholic people are functional, there are likely millions of users for whom couch lock impedes career advancement, academic success, or meeting responsibilities to family.

On surveys, 63 percent of high-frequency users report enough cognitive, emotional, employment, and social problems as a result of using the drug to be coded as meeting the criteria for a cannabis-use disorder (a condition defined by being unable to fully control drug-use behavior despite its negative consequences). For technical reasons, we think that figure overstates the problem, but there is no doubt that the problem exists: 17 percent of high-frequency users report wanting cannabis so badly that there are times they can’t think of anything else. 

Cannabis, who opponents have long labeled the gateway drug, may not actually be the gateway to hard drug use. But neither is it a perfect substitute for alcohol and other illicit drugs. As any economist would hypothesize, the same people smoking pot regularly probably also enjoy other mind-altering substances too. I would expect fewer new cannabis users to turn to illegal drugs when they have legal options, due to the transactions cost of seeking out illegal drugs. However, Caulkins claims that is not the case. 

Caulkins’ solution: a “grudging toleration” of legal use and supply. That’s basically an argument for more regulation, including reigning in large manufacturers, restricting cannabis production and sales to nonprofit organizations. (Yeah, that will work. Just swing by your local nonprofit hospital and see how charitable they are.) Also, regulate and reduce the potency of cannabis products. The writer also wants authorities to leave room for small producers (why?). Finally enforce the regulations so that illegal weed shops and clandestine marijuana producers don’t undermine the legal, regulated ones. As an aside, more regulations would actually encourage more clandestine producers. 

Professor Caulkins researches drug policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

Read more at The Atlantic: Legal Weed Didn’t Deliver on Its Promises

I also blogged about another article Caulkins wrote on destigmatizing hard drug use for The Atlantic: Here