Prof. Doug Berman saw the same Post article I blogged about this morning, and, as is typical, he has a ready reply. In his post, he says:
[The Post reporter] is quite right to highlight the statistical reality that lots more imprisoned offenders are behind bars for violent offenses than for drug crimes. But he fails to acknowledge that a considerable amount of violent crime is related to black market turf wars and that the failure to treat effectively drug addictions and related woes often drive property crimes. American legal and social history should provide a ready reminder of these realities: violent and property crimes (and incarceration rates) spiked considerably during alcohol Prohibition not because of greater alcohol use but due to enhanced incentives for otherwise law-abiding people to profit in the black market from others' desire for a drink.
The problem here is that (as I can tell you from many years as a prosecutor), violence is relatively uncommon in the pot market. Where you see it is overwhelmingly in the market for hard drugs, such as heroin, meth, and crack. These drugs, being more expensive, are also the ones that principally fuel property crime (for the money to buy the druggie's next hit).
Doug's solution (legalization, a' la the repeal of Prohibition) will not work because, by huge margins, the American people do not want hard drugs legalized.
I propose a different solution: Let hard drug dealers understand that selling their poison is not going to be tolerated and will be met with the full force of law, undiluted by big breaks for thugs sentencing reform.
Thanks for the engagement, Bill, though you miss two big parts of the story: (1) as the Angelos case and thousands of others in state and federal systems highlight, that to the structure of the drug war, long sentences are often handed out in drug cases just for weapon possession, and (2) the fact that the public does not (yet) favor a completely new approach to hard drugs does not mean it will not work, it just means the public still (in my view, wrongly) that drugs ought to be treated as a criminal justice matter rather than as a public health matter.
Among the reasons I favor marijuana legalization is to experiment with the crime and punishment impact of radically shifting from criminalization to regulation. Notably, many drug warriors predicted that Colorado would see a huge spike in all sorts of crime after legalization, but there seems little evidence of this 3 years later. And I would think that if Colorado would invest the roughly $100 million it is collecting in new tax revenue on hard-drug addictions, we might have a lot fewer people eager to spend money to buy poison.
As I have suggested to you before, Bill, we could and perhaps should try both strategies via federal law: how about we joinly propose a federal bill to legalize and tax marijuana wit the understanding that all the tax monies earned would go to both more cops/prosecutors/cells for heroin dealers and more treatment providers for heroin addicts?
In my mind, the missing issue here is whether legalization is associated with a higher prevalence rate of use. My guess is that it is, although I don't know by what magnitude.
That increased use is going to come at a cost. It's already reported that ER visits associated with marijuana use are up in places like Colorado. The $100 million is not a freebie.
Additionally, investing the financial windfall of marijuana taxes on treatment of hard drug addiction assumes that such an investment is a sound one. The efficacy data on substance abuse treatment suggests otherwise.
I urge you to look closely, Steve, at the data on ER visits in Colorado for marijuana. They are up, but this might well reflect folks being much more willing to go to (or be taken to) the ER with a "bad high" because they no longer fear criminal sanction for admitting use. And the number of kids going to the ER for accidental marijuana ingestion in CO --- and seemingly having limited long-term ill effects --- is still FAR below the number of kids who DIE from accidental ingestion of laundry pods.
I share you concerns about the possible limited efficacy of substance abuse treatment for hard drug users, but there is some preliminary data suggesting marijuana could be quite effective as a step-down drug. And since there is no prospect of fatalities from marijuana overdosing, I see marijuana legalization as openning up a potential avenue for additional treatment research/options.
That all said, I am certain legalization will increase marijuana use, but that is not in my view obviously a great harm to anyone, especially if people substitute MJ for more harmful/addictive opiates for pain relief and/or for alcohol for relaxation.
In the end, I am eager to see "what works" to diminish harms and increases freedom efficiently and effectively, and I have seen limited proof that blanket criminal prohibition (which we have now devoted significant resources to for 40 years) achieves these ends.
Doug,
In my experience as a psychologist, I'm extremely skeptical of the idea that people use marijuana as a step-down or replacement for hard drugs. I'm certainly not hearing this from any of my colleagues and I'm not aware of any data that supports this idea. People who abuse hard drugs tend to abuse all drugs hard meaning that they indulge frequently and with high doses.
I think we're probably just beginning to see the effects of legalization on utilization of medical services. The data is preliminary so we can't be assured that the reasons are innocuous nor can we really know the motivations for those who seek care.
The risks of marijuana are both known and unknown. What is known is that it is not comparable in tolerance, craving, or aggressive behavior as hard drugs. We also have a growing body of scientific literature which suggests that cannabinoids can have detrimental effects on physical and mental health along with some beneficial effects related mostly to cannabidiol.
The main problem is with what we don't know. Keep in mind that the discovery of the endocannabinoid system is relatively new - there's much we don't know. We do know that the system is widely distributed throughout the body. And it's a fair estimate that any drug that broadly affects this system can have positive and harmful effects.