Marijuana Laws and Marijuana Use — What the National Research Council Said
One of the arguments raised regularly by opponents of marijuana law reform is the claim that any lessening of penalties will lead to higher rates of marijuana use, and from that all sorts of terrible consequences will flow. This argument has already been raised against Question 2 in Massachusetts. It’s one of those claims that makes intuitive sense, but research suggests it’s simply not true.
That’s not just my opinion. A few years ago the White House asked the National Research Council to look at the data being collected about illegal drugs in order to better understand how that data could be used to inform policy. The NRC report, “Informing America’s Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don’t Know Keeps Hurting Us,” looked in some detail at what research tells us about the effect of drug laws.
Here’s a bit of what they had to say, from pages 192-193 of the report:
The issue most extensively studied has been the impact of decriminalization on the prevalence of marijuana use among youths and adults. Penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use were significantly reduced in 11 states in the 1970s (Bonnie, 1981b). All of these laws preclude incarceration for consumption-related marijuana offenses, making the offense punishable only by a fine, and most also classify the offense in a category (typically a civil infraction) that does not carry the stigmatizing consequence of having been convicted of a crime— hence the term ‘decriminalization.’
Most cross-state comparisons in the United States (as well as in Australia; see McGeorge and Aitken, 1997) have found no significant differences in the prevalence of marijuana use in decriminalized and nondecriminalized states (e.g., Johnston et al., 1981; Single, 1989; DiNardo and Lemieux, 1992; Thies and Register, 1993). Even in the few studies that find an effect on prevalence, it is a weak one. …
In summary, existing research seems to indicate that there is little apparent relationship between severity of sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use, and that perceived legal risk explains very little in the variance of individual drug use.
The most recent state-level data from the federal National Survey on Drug Use and Health continue to show little difference in use rates between states that have decriminalized marijuana and those that haven’t.
For example, in Mississippi, a decrim state, 8.45% of those aged 12 and up say they’ve used marijuana in the past year. In neighboring Louisiana and Alabama, both of which continue to arrest and jail people caught possessing marijuana, the rates are 9.58% and 7.99%, respectively. Some decrim states, like Oregon, are above the national average of 10.37%, while others are below. Overall, the difference between decrim and non-decrim states is well within the survey’s margin of error.
The lesson: Just because something seems like it should be true — or makes a good sound bite — doesn’t make it so.
Tagged with: decriminalization and drug warriors and science by the author
4 comments
I’ve seen this line of scare tactics propaganda trotted out every time that anyone wants cannabis legalized. Well, I comments on every webpage and news article that concerns cannabis. Now, I’ll have some great info to counter the claim that decrim increases cannabis use. Thank you very much for this info.
This proposal would make it ok to get caught as many times as you want with 28 joints! Do you know anyone who constantly carries around 28 joints? I do, it’s called a dealer and lots more dealers is just what this state needs. The cost of incarceration for dealers (users don’t go to jail) will go sky high. The disadvantaged communities will suffer further. Our kids and grandkids schools will be full of opportunistic dealers. This is a crazy idea from the drug legalization lobby. They picked Massachusetts because they say we are a liberal state. Apparently they think we are stupid! VOTE no on Question 2.
ParentsAgainstDrugs, do you enjoy wine? Because this kind of reasoning requires knocking back a glass or two.
Nevermind. Do you read these Questions before you set out to comment on them?
Question 2 will remove the threat of a six-month jail sentence and $500 criminal fine for up to one ounce of marijuana possession. If “users don’t go to jail”, then what’s this potential sentence doing in the law?
Your idea of the 28-joint-totin’ “dealer” is absurd. People possess marijuana for personal use in unrolled bulk that is usually less than an ounce, typically a quarter-ounce. “Dealers” deal in quantities much larger than an ounce, anything less isn’t worth the effort.
Then you try to say that not locking up “dealers” will lead to more of them, and that the cost of locking them up will go “sky high”? Uh, how can it cost more to not lock up people?
Notice: your kids and grandkids schools already are filled with opportunistic dealers, and if they are caught with more than an ounce, they will still face the same criminal penalties.
And if they are caught with less than an ounce, they still face a $100 civil fine, and if under 18, notification of their parents and mandatory attendance in a drug awareness program.
Judging by the polling, it looks like about 70% of Massachusetts is “stupid” enough to fall for Question 2 and stop wasting police time and money prosecuting social marijuana users and hurting their lifelong productivity and well-being with a CORI record.
[...] Mirken at the Marijuana Policy Project Blog points to some revealing data from the National Research Council: The issue most extensively studied has [...]
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