I got an interesting message in my e-mail this morning. The NPR Planet Money newsletter reviewed the prior nearly ten years in legal marijuana in some states, and came to some interesting conclusions:
What’s changed:
- More marijuana use
- Way more jobs
- Way more tax revenue. California makes over $600 million a month.
What hasn’t:
- No effect on crime or traffic accidents
- No change in price of marijuana. Evidently the product and service at the legal stores is so good people prefer it to anything else.
What might have:
Use of opioids. In the working paper linked from the newsletter, I found this incredible stat:
…Chan, Burkhardt, and Flyr (2020) show that RMLs [recreational marijuana laws] reduce opioid mortality by 20% to 35%, implying that both opioid use and misuse decline as legal marijuana access expands.
Given the mass death caused by opioids, this alone seems like reason enough to legalize marijuana in my book.
I read this newsletter with particular interest since I live in New Jersey, which recently legalized marijuana but doesn’t yet have weed stores the way California, Colorado and other states do. It looks like we mostly have positive changes to look forward to.
For more posts on politics and news, check these out:
- From COVID Vaccines to Library Cards, Government is Failing Us. Here’s the Way Out.
- Texas Is Suing Itself To Stop Mask Mandates As Essential Workers Are Thrown Under the Bus
- Europe Is Falling Behind the US, and It’s Going to Get Worse
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Photo: “Vancouver Global Marijuana March 2015 – by Danny Kresnyak” by Cannabis Culture is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Tremendous 