Patrick Kennedy and Kevin Sabet have this article in the WSJ, titled This Is No Time to Go to Pot: Legalizing marijuana encourages use of harder drugs and sets back the cause of social justice.
Sens. Cory Gardner and Elizabeth Warren have introduced a bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level in the name of "states' rights." In reality, it would give birth to Big Tobacco's successor.
This dangerous proposal would allow the marijuana industry to market high-potency pot candies, gummies and 99% pure extracts (compare that with 5% potent Woodstock weed). With 70% of today's illicit drug users having started with marijuana, not prescription drugs, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, this is exactly the wrong time to legalize pot.
Public-health data from states that have legalized strongly indicate that it is a failed experiment, resulting in more fatalities from driving while stoned, more emergency-room visits and poison-control calls, and more worker accidents and absenteeism.
CJLF takes no position on the issue. Personally, I am much more concerned about the rise of a Big Marijuana industry than I am with the question of whether possession of small quantities for personal use is an offense or not.
Can you explain why Big Marijuana worries you more than, say, Big Oil or Big Alcohol or Big Guns or Big Pharma or Big Gaming? I generally understand what motivates lefty folks when they say they trust government prohibitions/regulations more than free markets, but I am always puzzled when conservatives say they are concerned about commercial activities in this context.
Do you think marijuana use/sales have unique externalities or do you think the marijuana industry will be less concerned about externalities than, say, brewers or gun-makers or racetracks?
The closest analogy is Big Tobacco, as I have noted on other occasions. That industry's advertising not only promoted particular brands over others but also promoted smoking generally, to the great detriment of the health of a great many people. That is the danger I see with a large, legalized pot industry.
Alcohol also presents the potential for that danger, and at times its marketing has veered in that direction (e.g., the notorious "party animal" ads), but for the most part it has not.
The problems posed by the other industries are quite different, would be off-topic for this post, and would largely be off-topic for the blog entirely.
Since most marijuana reform advocates say expressly they are seeking a regulatory regime similar to alcohol, it seems you are generally comfortable with the model being embraced by reformers.
You appear to be assuming that two markets are the same merely because their "regulatory regimes" are similar.
Well, Kent, that was the basis for my initial query: I am eager to understand what you think is unique about marijuana as a product or market that makes it distinct from other "recreations" (or medicines) that make its commercialization by a "Big" industry distinctly worrisome.
As I see it, marijuana has more in common as a product and market to alcohol than to tobacco (e.g., history of prohibition, an intoxicating substance that has a relative low addiction rate among, evidence of health harms from moderate use is limited). But, there are certainly reasons to worry about possible impacts of its commercialization --- as there is with alcohol, and well as other dangerous "recreations." But that is why I return to being eager to hear from you whether you see marijuana use/sales as have unique externalities or fear the marijuana industry will be less concerned about externalities than, say, brewers or gun-makers or racetracks.
"This Is No Time to Go to Pot: Legalizing marijuana encourages use of harder drugs and sets back the cause of social justice."
In the "old days" it was though that pot was a gateway drug, that lead to the use and abuse of other more potent narcotics that seem to be available. I am not sure if that's really the case, however now that states are seeing a significant $$$ from pot taxation, I would assume no matter the finding state's would continue to keep it legal.
--Jeff