There are real benefits from New Mexico legalizing cannabis
Like a lot of New Mexicans watching the legislative session closely, I read with great interest Carla Sonntag’s opinion in The New Mexican about cannabis legalization (“Don’t let New Mexico go up in smoke,” My View, Feb. 2). As a self-proclaimed voice of business, I fully expected her to extol the 11,000 new jobs legalization is projected to create for Southern New Mexico farmers and millennial entrepreneurs statewide. Instead, she allowed her organization to fall victim to out-ofstate misinformation campaigns. Let’s set the record straight.
The claims Sonntag cited about epic increases in crime and mayhem would raise anyone’s eyebrow, but they simply aren’t true. Just ask the states and agencies whose data they repackaged. Reviewing the report they cite, the
Denver Post noted that it misrepresented data from Colorado’s own state health and justice agencies and controverted Denver police analysis finding no statistical increase in crime associated with legalization. The nonpartisan Brookings Institute labeled it part of a pattern of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recriminalization efforts “using data out of context or drawing grand conclusions that data ultimately do not support.”
Their study can’t even pass the Google test: It is debunked on the first page of search results.
More than 30 hours of public hearings and expert testimony this summer, the governor’s legalization work group learned that, on this issue in particular, the saying “99 percent of statistics tell 49 percent of the story” usually applies.
Experts warned us to be skeptical of the point-in-time reports like these and to rely on peer-reviewed data published in reputable scientific journals. When we did, here’s what we found: First, we looked to the preeminent
Journal of the American Medical Association-Pediatrics. We learned that in a 25-year review of data across eight legalized states, pediatric researchers concluded that “recreational marijuana laws were associated with an 8 percent decrease in the likelihood of teens trying marijuana as well as a 9 percent reduction in the odds of frequent use.” Why? “It is more difficult for teenagers to obtain marijuana as drug dealers are replaced by licensed dispensaries that require proof of age.” No drug dealer ever asked for an ID. Regulated stores do. In the Journal of American Public
Health, a 15-year study of opioid-related deaths concluded that legalization is associated with a reduction in opioid-related deaths. Another study at the National Institutes of Health found no increase in the number of admissions for cannabis addiction, even though the population increased and cannabis was easier to access for adults.
DWI “rates have reduced after the legalization of marijuana in all states. … The Colorado Bureau of Investigation reported a 16 percent statewide drop … Washington saw a 32.9 percent decline in the number of arrests for any DUI in the two years following legalization,” according to more NIH data. All of this is thanks to smart investments in officer training and technology that New Mexico’s plan wisely copies.
Claiming that increases in the numbers of auto wrecks or adults using cannabis is simply misleading without disclosing that Colorado’s historic population boom outpaced those changes, resulting in lower rates of impact across the board. And simply saying that more adults use cannabis ignores the reality that those adults now have access to safe tested products from a regulated market, no longer funding local underground illicit dealers. That’s the point of legalization.
Since New Mexico launched the nation’s first medical cannabis program a decade ago, our debates have relied on facts, not fear. New Mexicans already know the facts: Legalization is good for our economy, limits access to youth and can fund important needed investments in treatment, health care and public safety. It’s time to legalize for New Mexico.