The Cato Institute

Legal Marijuana Under Attack

The DOJ is using the criminal law to trample on state prerogatives and individual rights…

Today, Attorney General Sessions announced that the Department of Justice rescinded the “Cole Memo,” an internal enforcement guideline from the Obama Administration that de-prioritized enforcement of federal marijuana prohibition against individuals and businesses complying with state laws regarding recreational marijuana. This move endangers state-legal businesses and violates the principles of federalism that have been central to the Republican Party for decades.

This was made possible, in part, by the failure of the judiciary to rein in the power of an overzealous federal government. The Supreme Court has twice approved of this type of overreach. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942) and Gonzales v. Raich(2005), the Court ruled that individuals growing crops exclusively for personal consumption—wheat and marijuana, respectively—could be regulated by the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution despite the crops never entering a market of any kind, let alone across state lines.

While the average marijuana consumer is not going to be targeted or arrested by the federal government, business owners directly and indirectly involved in state-legal recreational marijuana distribution may see their freedoms and livelihoods threatened by this action.  Put simply, the DOJ is using the criminal law to trample on state prerogatives and individual rights. 

Learn More…

November Could Be a Turning Point for Marijuana Policy

This November’s election could be a decisive turning point in the struggle to end U.S. marijuana prohibition. ​It’s been a long time coming.

As recently as the 90s, every major political faction and almost every significant public intellectual was squarely in favor of prohibition. We libertarians walked a lonely road, patiently pointing out prohibition’s high costs and doubtful benefits. In some ways we’re still alone, because we certainly wouldn’t stop with marijuana. But let’s consider what progress we’ve made.

In November’s election, five states – Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada – may each legalize recreational marijuana for adults.

If recent history is any guide, things look good for this November: Of the seven legalization initiatives offered to voters since 2012, five have passed, in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Washington DC.

These state marijuana legalizations have had minimal effect on marijuana use and related outcomes. The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents.

Yet, despite President Obama’s previous statements indicating that he would allow science, rather than drug war ideology, to determine the legal status of marijuana, earlier this year the Obama Administration rejected the application of a pair of governors who asked the federal government to lower the federal restrictions on marijuana. The administration concluded that marijuana should remain a “Schedule I” controlled substance under federal law, the most restricted category of illicit drugs, which the government considers to have a high potential for abuse and no legitimate value.

As more and more states legalize, that Schedule I classification looks more and more ridiculous.​ 

Under our constitution, criminal law has historically been left to state and local governments, not Congress. That is why, when the misguided government opted to prohibit the manufacture and distribution of alcohol in the 1920s, prohibitionists sought a Constitutional amendment granting the federal government the authority to ban alcohol. Alcohol prohibition ended, after years of corruption and unnecessary bloodshed, when the constitution was amended again to correct the mistake of the earlier amendment.

When the federal government wanted to ban drugs, however, it merely passed a federal law banning drugs, creating an obvious tension between the federal government and the states that have traditionally made their own decisions about what substances to permit or prohibit.

The result is a legal quagmire in which 42 states and the District of Columbia allow either medicinal or recreational use of marijuana, while the federal government insists that a nationwide prohibition remains in effect.

Soon the federal government may have to decide whether to follow the states – and the will of the people – or whether to crack down on legalization. But as time goes on, cracking down looks more and more illegitimate, and inaction looks more and more like a joke.

The long federal experiment in prohibition of marijuana (as well as cocaine, heroin, and other drugs) has given us crime and corruption combined with a manifest failure to stop the use of drugs or reduce their availability to children.

Something’s got to give.

Dig into Cato’s research on the drug war….

Bringing a Dose of Reality to the Debate Over State Marijuana Legalization

The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents.

In November 2012 voters in the states of Colorado and Washington approved ballot initiatives that legalized marijuana for recreational use. Two years later, Alaska and Oregon followed suit.

This November, as many as 11 other states may legalize marijuana, through either ballot initiative or legislative action.

Both supporters and opponents of legalizations initiatives make numerous claims about state-level marijuana legalization.

Advocates think legalization reduces crime, raises tax revenue, lowers criminal justice expenditures, improves public health, bolsters traffic safety, and stimulates the economy. Critics argue that legalization spurs marijuana and other drug or alcohol use, increases crime, diminishes traffic safety, harms public health, and lowers teen educational achievement.

Systematic evaluation of these claims, however, has been largely absent.

A new policy analysis from the Cato Institute on the impact of recent marijuana legalizations in Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and Alaska compares pre- and post-policy-change paths of marijuana, other drug or alcohol use, marijuana prices, crime, traffic accidents, teen educational outcomes, public health, tax revenues, criminal justice expenditures, and economic outcomes.

Through this analysis its authors conclude that state marijuana legalizations have had minimal effect on marijuana use and related outcomes.

While insufficient time has elapsed since the four initial legalizations to allow strong inference, on the basis of available data, there is little support for the stronger claims made by either opponents or advocates of legalization.

Read the paper…

Marijuana Policy Changes In Colorado Generate No Major Impacts To Date

In November 2012, voters in the states of Colorado and Washington approved ballot initiatives that legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. A new working paper from Jeffrey Miron, part of a longer-term project that will monitor state marijuana legalizations, provides a preliminary assessment of marijuana legalization and related policies in Colorado. 

In the working paper, Marijuana Policy in Colorado, Cato’s Director of Economic Studies Jeffrey Miron provides a preliminary assessment of marijuana legalization and related policies in Colorado. Miron’s research determines that changes in Colorado’s marijuana policy have had minimal impacts on substance use, crime, traffic accidents, public health, and teen educational achievement. Colorado has also collected non-trivial tax revenue as a result of marijuana commercialization. However, this amount has been so far less than anticipated by legalization advocates.

On November 4th, voters in Alaska, Oregon, and the District of Columbia will be deciding  on marijuana legalization initiatives similar to Colorado’s Amendment 64. Proponents of these initiatives argue legalization reduces crime, raises revenue, lowers criminal justice expenditure, improves public health, improves traffic safety, and stimulates the economy. Critics, however, contend legalization spurs marijuana use, increases crime, diminishes traffic safety, harms public health, and lowers teen educational achievement.

Miron compares a multitude of data points on issues such as violent crime, fatal car crashes, and high school drop-out rates in the periods before and after commercialization of marijuana in Colorado in 2009. His investigation of the available evidence in Colorado suggests that the state’s marijuana policy changes have had minimal impact and not created new trends for social outcomes.

 The working paper is the first part of Miron’s longer-term project that will monitor state marijuana legalizations in Colorado, Washington, and other states. The project will ultimately compare the path of outcomes from legalization in these states with non-legalizing states.

Read the paper…

Medical Marijuana Does NOT Mean Increased Teen Marijuana Use