Legal pot’s impact on state: ‘No big deal’ or a ‘reckless experiment’?
Yes, Northwestern University professor of pharmacology Rich Miller was at Woodstock. He recalls the landmark 1969 music festival as the pinnacle of the counterculture movement, a joyous, peaceful celebration consecrated in clouds of marijuana.
The next year, President Richard Nixon signed into law the Controlled Substances Act, outlawing weed. Yet after all these years, Miller says, the legalization coming to Illinois in the new year is “no big deal.”
The Netherlands, he points out, has had de facto legalization since the 1970s. More recently, Canada and Uruguay have legalized it. All found that marijuana use did not lead to widespread crime, addiction or collapse of society.
“January 1st is going to be a ridiculous feeding frenzy,” Miller said. “After a year, it’s just not a big deal. The big surprise is, there’s not going to be very many surprises.”
Legalization opponents beg to differ. They say legalization is a huge social venture, and the costs will be high.
“There’s a reason why most localities that have the chance reject legal marijuana: In theory it sounds nice, but in practice it stinks — literally and figuratively,” Kevin Sabet, president of the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, wrote in a statement to the Tribune. “As Illinois moves forward in this unfortunate, reckless experiment, we can expect to see continued harms to health, safety, and social justice.”
The ripple effects of legalization will extend far beyond people getting high. Foremost among them are what the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, which helped write the new state law, calls “the most far-reaching social equity and criminal justice reform provisions ever.”
The law provides for clearing the criminal records of hundreds of thousands of people with lowlevel cannabis convictions. It also provides a cut of legal pot sales to fund social equity applicants, primarily people who were convicted of low-level cannabis crimes and their families, or who’ve lived in areas hardest hit by the war on drugs.
People meeting those criteria will get job training, and $12 million for grants, loans, lower fees and preferential treatment in licensing to develop cannabis businesses. The programs will be funded largely by existing medical marijuana growers and dispensaries, which were given first crack at selling to the new recreational market.
Because the state isn’t required to grant new marijuana business licenses until May, black Chicago aldermen complained that the existing white-owned medical cannabis businesses were getting an unfair chokehold on the industry, while minorities were getting the scraps.
Financial analysts agree that early investors stand to make huge amounts of money in the industry. One study done for sponsors of legalization estimated there will be about 1 million cannabis customers living in Illinois, plus another 11 million tourists buying weed.
When the market matures in a few years, that many customers could generate annual sales of some $2 billion, though some of that demand would remain in the illegal market, according to the study by cannabis consultants Freedman & Koski of Denver.
It’s still early to gauge the consequences in the 10 states that have already legalized cannabis since 2012. But a few preliminary results have emerged.
First, a marked increase in youth use has not so far materialized. Teens in legal states use cannabis at a higher rate than nationwide, but have generally not started using more since legalization.
However, cannabis-related hospitalizations roughly doubled in Colorado in the first years following legalization. A disproportionate amount were due to people eating too many edibles, and tourists also accounted for more than their share.
Not surprisingly, cannabis-related arrest rates have fallen dramatically in places where it’s legal. But homelessness appears to have increased. An informal survey by a Salvation Army shelter in Denver reportedly found that 30% of about 500 new out-oftowners said they had come to Colorado for pot.
Another major source of concern is the risk of traffic accidents.
In four states that legalized pot — Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — crashes were up by 6% compared with nearby states, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute, funded by insurance companies.
Studies have shown that marijuana can significantly impair a driver’s reaction time and decision-making, even when they don’t think they’re impaired. If Illinois sees more claims for car crashes, insurance officials said, that will likely push the cost of auto premiums higher.
“Illinois needs to prepare for the impact legal marijuana use will have on the safety of its roads,” Beth Mosher, spokeswoman for the AAA, said in a news release. She called for more training for law enforcement and a campaign for public education.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who campaigned on legalization, argued it was better to regulate and tax marijuana since it was already used illegally. His budget for this year initially estimated $170 million in revenue from licensing fees, though that amount later was reduced to $57 million. The state projects that taxes could raise $375 million annually after the program grows over the next five years.
The legal shift may also bring some unanticipated changes. One study by Georgia State University found that alcohol sales fell by 15% in states with medical marijuana.
Ultimately, proponents hope that legalization will cut down or eliminate the illegal market and its crime. But black markets are thriving in some West Coast states that have an oversupply of legal weed, so experts say that may takes years to occur, if ever.