Should marijuana be legalized? The latest Gallup poll reports that exactly half of Americans say "yes"; opinion couldn't be more evenly divided. Marijuana is forbidden by international treaties and by national and local laws across the globe. But those laws are under challenge in several countries. In the U.S., there is no short-term prospect for changes in federal law, but sixteen states allow medical use and recent initiatives to legalize production and non-medical use garnered more than 40% support in four states. California's Proposition 19 nearly passed in 2010, and multiple states are expected to consider similar measures in the years to come. The debate and media coverage surrounding Proposition 19 reflected profound confusion, both about the current state of the world and about the likely effects of changes in the law. In addition, not all supporters of "legalization" agree on what it is they want to legalize: Just using marijuana? Growing it? Selling it? Advertising it? If sales are to be legal, what regulations and taxes should apply? Different forms of legalization might have very different results. Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know will provide readers with a non-partisan primer about the topic, covering everything from the risks and benefits of using marijuana, to describing the current laws around the drug in the U.S. and abroad. The authors discuss the likely costs and benefits of legalization at the state and national levels and walk readers through the "middle ground" of policy options between prohibition and commercialized production. The authors also consider how marijuana legalization could personally impact parents, heavy users, medical users, drug traffickers, and employers. What Everyone Needs to Know is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Autorentext

Jonathan P. Caulkins is Stever Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Angela Hawken is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. Beau Kilmer is Co-Director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Mark Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy at UCLA and editor of The Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. He is Washington state's lead adviser on the legalization of marijuana, and was named by Politico Magazine as one of the Politico 50, a list of the key thinkers, doers and visionaries reshaping American politics. He is the author of When Brute Force Fails and Against Excess.

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Acknowledgements Dedication Introduction PART I: MARIJUANA AND PROHIBITION TODAY 1. What is marijuana and what would it mean to legalize it? What is marijuana legalization? What is marijuana? How does it feel to get high? What are the active ingredients in marijuana? What are sinsemilla, "commercial grade" marijuana, ditchweed, and hash oil? Has marijuana been getting stronger? Is higher potency bad? Does increasing potency argue against legalization, or for it? How long does intoxication last? For how long can marijuana use be detected? Is medical marijuana the same as illegal marijuana? What is synthetic marijuana (Spice or K2)? 2. Who uses marijuana? How many people use marijuana? How is marijuana typically consumed? How has the nature of marijuana use changed over time? How much marijuana do users consume? Can marijuana use lead to dependence or addiction? What are the typical patterns of marijuana use? How common is heavy marijuana use? How does marijuana use vary across the country? What share of marijuana use is high-potency marijuana? How much do users spend on marijuana? 3. How is marijuana produced and distributed today? How and where is marijuana grown today? How is marijuana currently distributed? How much is marijuana marked up between farmgate, wholesale, and retail? Are prices lower in the Netherlands? California? Elsewhere? Since marijuana is just a plant, why is it so expensive? Is marijuana really the nation's leading cash crop? Does marijuana production really use $5 billion worth of electricity in the U.S. each year? 4. How stringent is marijuana enforcement in the U.S.? When did marijuana become illegal in the United States? Who gets arrested for marijuana possession? What happens after those arrests? Who gets arrested for marijuana dealing, production, and importing? Are federal marijuana sentences similar to sentences for cocaine and heroin? How many people are in prison for marijuana offenses? How much does marijuana incarceration and enforcement cost? How much marijuana is seized and eradicated? 5. What are the risks of using marijuana? Why is it difficult to measure the consequences of marijuana use? How do researchers study the risks of marijuana use? What is the likelihood of becoming dependent on marijuana? How bad is marijuana dependency compared to dependency on other drugs? Do users seek treatment for problems with marijuana? Does marijuana treatment work? Can users experience a fatal overdose from marijuana? Can users experience a non-fatal overdose from using too much marijuana? Does marijuana use cause emphysema and other respiratory problems? Does smoking marijuana cause cancer? Are their second-hand smoke risks of marijuana? Is marijuana a "gateway drug"? Does using marijuana cause schizophrenia and other mental health problems? Does using marijuana influence crime and delinquency? Does marijuana use affect education and employment outcomes? Does marijuana use cause automobile crashes? Does parental marijuana use influence child welfare? 6. What is known about the non-medicinal benefits of using marijuana? Why don't we know more about the benefits of cannabis use? Would we know more about the benefits of cannabis if it were legal? Is there a "stoned" way of thinking? Is "stoned thinking" valuable? Does cannabis use enhance creativity? What role does cannabis play in worship? So there's no real evidence of any benefits? Why should mere pleasure count as a benefit? 7. What are the medicinal benefits of using marijuana? Does marijuana have medical value? Why isn't marijuana available as a regular prescription drug? But isn't smoking unhealthy? How about using one or more cannabinoids instead of the whole plant? How much "medical marijuana" use is actually medical? PART II: LEGALIZATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 8. What are the pros and cons of legalization generally? What does it mean to legalize a drug? Are there shades of legalization? Why have drug laws in the first place? Why even consider legalizing a substance whose use creates harm? Wouldn't the results of a policy that treated marijuana like alcohol be an improvement on the current mess? But wasn't alcohol prohibition in the United States a complete failure? But everyone knows that Prohibition led to a big increase in homicides. How much of the increase in consumption after legalization would reflect increased heavy use rather than increased casual use? Can't the effects of marketing be reined in by regulations and taxes? What about legal availability without free trade? Couldn't that work? Isn't it impossible to make someone better off by coercing behavioral change? If people want drugs, doesn't depriving them of drugs make them worse off by definition? If people choose to harm themselves with drugs, why is that anyone else's business? But isn't everyone with an addictive personality already addicted to something? If the results of legalization are uncertain, why not just try it out, and go back to the current system if legalization doesn't work? 9. How is legalization of marijuana different from legalization of other drugs? How does legalizing cannabis compare to legalizing all drugs? Isn't cannabis different from other drugs? It's natural, it's not addictive, and it's not toxic. If marijuana accounts for half of all drug arrests, would legalizing marijuana free up half our prison cells? How much drug-related crime, violence, and corruption would marijuana legalization elimi…