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cannabis reform
The Verdict Is In: Legalizing Weed Works
Twelve years into states’ marijuana legalization experiment, public support for making marijuana legal nationwide has never been higher.
Mar 31, 2024
It’s been over a decade since Colorado and Washington became the first two states to legalize marijuana for adults. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s fair to ask: Has this policy been successful?
Absolutely. A policy of legalization, regulation, and education is preferable to a policy of criminalization, stigmatization, and incarceration.
Let’s be clear. Legalization didn’t create or normalize the marijuana market in the United States. The market was already here.
But under a policy of prohibition, this market flourished underground—and those involved in it remained largely unaccountable. They didn’t pay taxes, they didn’t check IDs, and they didn’t test the purity of their products. Disputes that arose in the illicit marketplace were not adjudicated in courts of law.
These policies are working largely as voters and politicians intended—and because they’re preferable to cannabis criminalization.
By contrast, under regulation, cannabis products in many states are now available from licensed manufacturers at retail stores.
Cannabis is cultivated, and products are manufactured, in accordance with good manufacturing practices. Products are lab tested and labeled accordingly. And sales are taxed, with revenues being reinvested in the community. Since 2014, retail sales of adult-use cannabis products have generated more than $15 billion in tax revenue.
Most importantly, millions of Americans—many of them young adults—are no longer being arrested for possessing a substance that is objectively safer than either tobacco or alcohol.
According to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the annual number of marijuana-related arrests in the United States fell from 750,000 in 2012 to 227,000 in 2022, the last year for which data is available.
In short, these state-level policy changes have resulted in countless Americans being spared criminal records—and the lost opportunities that accompany them—in the past decade.
And contrary to opponents’ fears, cannabis use by teens has not risen in parallel with legalization.
According to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of high schoolers who use marijuana actually fell 30% over the past decade. Compliance check data from California, Colorado, Nevada, and other legal marijuana states show that licensed marijuana retailers do not sell products to underage patrons.
Also contrary to some critics’ claims, legalization states have not experienced any spike in either psychosis or mental illnesses.
According to findings published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, rates of psychosis-related health care claims are no higher in jurisdictions where cannabis is legal than in those where it’s not. Stanford University researchers similarly reported last year that residents of states where cannabis is legal exhibit no higher levels of psychosis than those in non-legal states.
Legalization is also successfully disrupting the illicit marketplace. According to a 2023 survey, 52% of consumers residing in legal states said that they primarily sourced their cannabis products from brick-and-mortar establishments. By contrast, only 6% of respondents said that they primarily purchased cannabis from a “dealer.”
Many consumers in non-legal states also reported that they frequently traveled to neighboring legal states to purchase cannabis products rather than buying from illicit dealers in their own state.
Twelve years into states’ marijuana legalization experiment, public support for making marijuana legal nationwide has never been higher. To date, 24 states have legalized the adult-use market.
None of these states have ever repealed their legalization laws. That’s because these policies are working largely as voters and politicians intended—and because they’re preferable to cannabis criminalization.
After a century of failed policies and “canna-bigotry,” the verdict is in. Legalization is a success, and the end of cannabis prohibition can’t come soon enough.
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US Voter Support for Legal Marijuana Hits All-Time High as Ohio Approves Recreational Use
"As more states have adopted legalization, public support for this policy has risen dramatically," said one campaigner. "Voters prefer legalization and regulation over the failed policy of marijuana prohibition."
Nov 08, 2023
A record 7 in 10 voting-age Americans think marijuana should be legal, according to Gallup polling published Wednesday, a day after voters in Ohio made it the 24th state to legalize adult recreational use of the plant.
After holding steady at 68% for three straight years, Gallup found that support for legalization rose to 70%, with 29% of respondents saying cannabis should not be legal and 1% undecided. That's a 12% increase in support from 2013 levels and a 36% rise from 2003. In 1969, when Gallup first asked Americans if marijuana should be legal, only 12% said "yes."
"There's no 'buyer's remorse' among the public when it comes to legalizing cannabis," Paul Armentano, deputy director at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), said in a statement. "As more states have adopted legalization, public support for this policy has risen dramatically. That's because these policies are largely working as intended and because voters prefer legalization and regulation over the failed policy of marijuana prohibition."
According to Gallup:
For the second straight year, majority support for legalization is found among all major subgroups, including by age, political party, and ideology. Self-identified conservatives were the last major subgroup to express majority support, reaching 51% in 2022. Republicans first gave marijuana majority-level backing in 2017.
As of today, support for legal marijuana use is highest among self-identified liberals (91%) and Democrats (87%) and lowest among conservatives (52%) and Republicans (55%). Support is inversely correlated with age, reaching 79% among 18- to 34-year-olds. However, even among the oldest age group, nearly two-thirds (64%) are in favor.
This widespread support for legal marijuana was evident on Tuesday as nearly 57% of voters in Ohio—a state that voted for former President Donald Trump in the last two elections and has a Republican governor—approved the legalization and regulation of marijuana for people age 21 and older, who are also allowed to grow up to six cannabis plants per person and 12 plants per residence. The measure imposes a 10% tax on cannabis sales.
"Marijuana is no longer a controversial issue," Tom Haren, spokesperson for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, toldMarijuana Moment. "Ohioans demonstrated this by passing State Issue 2 in a landslide."
Marijuana Policy Project interim executive director Matthew Schweich told MJBizDaily that the Ohio vote "shows that a cannabis legalization campaign can win anytime and anywhere."
"To achieve victory in a nonpresidential year in a red state shows just how strong public support for legalization has become," he added.
The rise in support for legal marijuana parallels "the rise in Americans' self-reported use of the drug," Gallup said, citing a July survey. "The percentage saying they personally smoke marijuana has risen 10 points to 17% since 2013, and the percentage who have ever tried it has increased 12 points to 50%."
Despite state-level gains—only 10 states have not legalized marijuana for recreational or medical use—cannabis remains strictly prohibited at the federal level, where the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) lists the plant as a Schedule I controlled substance.
Schedule I drugs, the DEA explains, have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse," and in addition to cannabis include heroin, LSD, MDMA, and peyote. Far more dangerous substances than marijuana—including cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl—are classified as Schedule II.
After granting a mass pardon last year to U.S. citizens and permanent residents convicted of simple federal marijuana possession, President Joe Biden ordered Attorney General Merrick Garland and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to initiate a review which resulted in an August recommendation by HHS to reclassify cannabis as Schedule III. Such a move would place the plant in the same category as codeine, ketamine, testosterone, and anabolic steroids.
"Just as it is intellectually dishonest to categorize cannabis in the same placement as heroin, it is equally disingenuous to treat cannabis in the same manner as anabolic steroids," Armentano said at the time. "The majority of Americans believe that cannabis ought to be legal and that its hazards to health are less significant than those associated with federally descheduled substances like alcohol and tobacco."
"Like those latter substances, we have long argued the cannabis plant should be removed from the Controlled Substances Act altogether," he added, "thereby proving state governments—rather than the federal government—the ability to regulate marijuana in the manner they see fit without violating federal law."
In the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate, the bipartisan Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act—which would legally protect banks and credit unions that serve cannabis businesses—was approved by the Banking Committee in September.
Last week, a bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers reintroduced H.B. 6028, the States Reform Act, legislation led by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) that would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, facilitate the expungement of certain marijuana-related offenses, and provide regulatory oversight for state-legal marijuana markets.
However, Republicans control the lower chamber, and new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is a Christian fundamentalist who opposes marijuana on religious grounds. In recent years, Johnson has voted against legislation that would end federal prohibition, allow banks to work with state-legal cannabis businesses, and fund medical marijuana research.
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Marijuana Industry Banking Bill Passes Key Senate Panel
"We've got momentum on our side," said Sen. Jeff Merkley. "Let's get this done to protect our legal cannabis businesses!"
Sep 27, 2023
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday brought major federal marijuana banking legislation closer to becoming law than ever, approving a bipartisan bill that advocates say is essential to the safety of legal recreational and medical marijuana businesses across the United States.
The committee voted 14-9 in favor of passing the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, which would legally protect banks and credit unions that provide services to cannabis operations and prohibit federal regulators from ordering financial institutions to close a business' account based on "reputational risk."
An earlier version of the bill passed in the U.S. House numerous times but was never advanced in the Senate under either Democratic or Republican control.
"We've got momentum on our side to finally pass the SAFER Banking Act," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who is sponsoring the legislation along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). "Let's get this done to protect our legal cannabis businesses!"
Although 39 states have passed laws legalizing the sale of marijuana for recreational or medical use, advocates say dispensaries are put at risk by a lack of federal protections for financial institutions that might otherwise work with them.
Only 12% of all U.S. banks and 5% of credit unions provide banking services to marijuana-related businesses, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
As Common Dreams reported, Mastercard announced in July that it would no longer offer services in the cannabis industry because marijuana is still criminalized at the federal level—even though annual national sales in the sector are projected to reach $57 billion by 2030 in states where cannabis is currently legalized.
NORML, which has advocated for marijuana decriminalization since 1970, noted on Wednesday that more than 70% of cannabis businesses report that a "lack of access to banking or investment capital" is their top challenge.
Without access to banking services, businesses are forced to make sales only in cash, which Merkley said is "an open invitation to robberies, muggings, money laundering, and organized crime."
"Forcing legal businesses to operate in all-cash is dangerous for our communities," said the senator.
NORML political director Morgan Fox called the newly advanced legislation "an improved version of the SAFE Banking Act."
"It allows state-licensed cannabis businesses to more easily access financial services, such as opening a simple bank account, and it provides entrepreneurs with greater access to lending and other services that are available to other legal businesses," said Fox.
Schumer called the passage of the bill out of the committee "a huge step," and said he is also working to include amendments to expunge people's marijuana-related criminal offenses in the final bill.
"Now is the time," said the senator.
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