Drug Legalization Questions
The criminal classification of pot at the federal level has other serious implications for marijuana policy, even in places where state law states that the drug is legal. Many state-legal marijuana businesses, for example, have to act as cash-only businesses, as many banks are nervous about dealing with businesses that essentially violate federal law. Companies also cannot claim multiple deductions and, as a result, their effective tax rates can be as high as 90% or more. Depending on prices and market availability, there may still be a black market for marijuana sales despite legalization. This activity would still be illegal, meaning you can still be arrested for selling or trafficking marijuana if you don`t comply with the state`s licensing and tax laws. Self-cultivation for personal use would also be banned, unlike most other states that have legalized cannabis. However, the penalties for such violations are likely to be very low. States are increasingly becoming laboratories of democracy when it comes to legalizing marijuana. Without longitudinal data, we do not yet know which exact policies are most effective in protecting public safety and ensuring that consumption is safe and responsible. But after analyzing the laws of the twenty-four states that have legalized medical and/or recreational marijuana, we know that these five issues are important political and political hot spots that every state should consider when drafting laws and regulations on the subject. There may not be an appropriate way to address drug-influenced driving, youth access, distraction, consumer protection or advertising, but not addressing it at all would be a major omission – not only to make laws less effective and regulatory systems less secure, but also to turn the public against legalization, and even potentially abandon the federal government`s law enforcement hammer against a state. to bring.
its legal market and its consumers. More research into the effects of second-hand marijuana smoke is still needed. The known risks of secondary exposure to tobacco smoke – including risks to the heart or lungs24 – raise the question of whether secondary exposure to marijuana smoke results in similar health risks. Second-hand marijuana smoke contains many of the same toxic and carcinogenic chemicals found in tobacco smoke and contains some of these chemicals in higher amounts.5 A third approach recognizes the heterogeneity of violence among individual drug traffickers. By focusing law enforcement on those identified as the most violent, police can create Darwinian pressures and incentives to reduce the overall level of violence. This technique still needs to be systematically evaluated. This seems to be an attractive research opportunity if an administration wants to try such an approach. As far as alcohol and tobacco are concerned, there is also a lot of room or improvement in the existing policy repertoire, for example through tax increases), even before more innovative approaches are considered. When it comes to currently illegal drugs, it is much more difficult to see how increasing or slightly altering efforts on standard topics will measurably reduce the scale of the problems. Since legalization, regulators have taken a stricter approach to edibles – restricting them, requiring stronger packaging and labels, and even banning some of them.
The cost – fiscally, personally and socially – of imprisoning half a million drug addicts (mostly traffickers) behind bars is significant enough to raise the question of whether a less comprehensive but more targeted fight against drugs might be the best solution. Various forms of targeted enforcement promise to significantly reduce drug abuse, non-drug-related crime and incarceration. These include testing and sanctioning programmes, interventions to reduce blatant retail drug markets, collective deterrence against violent drug trafficking organisations, and drug law enforcement to deter and neutralise exceptionally violent individual traffickers. Significant increases in alcohol taxes could also significantly reduce abuse, as could the development of more effective treatments for stimulant users or the improvement of the evidence base that underpins the movement towards “evidence-based guidelines.” 6. Price. With marijuana, as with any other product, the price will affect consumption and income. A growing body of research suggests that when marijuana prices drop, the likelihood of someone using marijuana increases. Retail prices will therefore depend largely on consumer demand, production costs and tax rates. If taxes are too high, pot becomes expensive enough to create an incentive for an illegal market – exactly what legalization tries to avoid.
The way taxes are set also affects what is bought and consumed, i.e. whether the pot is taxed by value, total weight, THC content or other chemical properties. Opponents of legalization fear that full approval of recreational marijuana use will make marijuana far too accessible and, as a result, expand its use and abuse. There is conflicting evidence as to whether marijuana and alcohol are supplements or substitutes; No one can rule out an even greater increase or decrease in alcohol use as a result of marijuana legalization, especially in the long term. Especially since politicians and activists are more critical of mass incarceration and the war on drugs, legalizing a drug that few consider very harmful, if at all, is widely perceived as a simple – and popular – place to start criminal justice reform and drug policy. On the state legislature side, the most serious discussions appear to be taking place in New York and New Jersey, where governors strongly support legalization but have so far struggled to get bills passed by lawmakers. There have also been moves in Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Vermont (to legalize sales), among others. The harms of marijuana use can also manifest themselves in the quality of life of users. In one study, heavy marijuana users reported that the drug affected several important measures of health and quality of life, including physical and mental health, cognitive abilities, social life, and career status. We would like to know what long-term effects of price changes and non-price aspects of availability, including legal risks and stigma, affect consumption. There is now literature that estimates the price elasticity of demand for illicit drugs, but estimates vary considerably from study to study, and many studies are based on surveys that may not give enough weight to heavy users who dominate consumption. In addition, legalization would likely lead to price declines that go far beyond the historical backing data.
Critics of legalization also claim that marijuana is an “entry drug” that can cause people to try more dangerous drugs such as cocaine and heroin, as there is a correlation between cannabis use and the use of harder drugs. But the researchers argue that this correlation could only suggest that people prone to all types of drug use only start with marijuana because it is the cheapest and most accessible of the illegal drugs. So if cocaine or heroin were cheaper and more accessible, there`s a good chance that people would start using these drugs first. This ignorance of the effects on consumption hinders attempts at objectivity and analysis when it comes to whether and under what conditions one of the currently illegal drugs should be legalized. The ability of emergency management to reduce consumption and the finding that even the strongest users respond to price increases by consuming less profoundly challenges conventional thinking about the importance of addiction.
