Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know [Paperback]

Jonathan P. Caulkins (Author), Angela Hawken (Author), Beau Kilmer (Author), Mark A.R. Kleiman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2012 | Series: What Everyone Needs to Know

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"For decades, the legal status of marijuana has provoked anger, controversy, wild accusations, and a remarkable amount of unreason. This book calmly and succinctly looks at the facts. It is essential reading for all who seek rational marijuana policies." -- Eric Schlosser, author of Reefer Madness

"Here is a book by four leading experts who collaborate in answering questions about marijuana and its possible legalization. Everything you might want to ask, answered crisply and accurately! And the four authors give, at the end, their separate recommendations: they differ, but they've agreed on 149 answers. A remarkable collaboration, and a pioneering format worth emulating." - Thomas Schelling, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences

"[T]his is probably the best writing about marijuana legalization that has ever been done." --Drug WarRant.com

"Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know couldn't be more timely. A collaborative effort by four academic drug policy researchers, this tome is thoughtful, thorough, and balanced as it addresses the wide array of issues and disputes associated with changing pot policy. One can only hope that politicians charged with voting on marijuana policy reform would read it, or at least, that their staffs would do so and offer them up a nicely bullet-pointed précis." -- StopTheDrugWar.org

"I'm going to start out by saying if you have any interest whatsoever in the drug legalization debate, then run - don't walk - to your local or online bookstore and get this book." - Sylvia Longmire, Mexico's Drug War

About the Author

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 A.R. Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy at UCLA, editor of The Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, and author of When Brute Force Fails and Against Excess.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (July 13, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199913730
• ISBN-13: 978-0199913732
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Public Affairs & Policy > Cultural Policy
  • #45 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Public Affairs & Policy > Social Policy

More About the Author

Mark A. R. Kleiman



Mark A.R. Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His teaching and research cover drug policy, crime control policy, and methods of policy analysis. His books include *Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control* and *Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results*, and *When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment* (one of The Economist's "Books of the Year" for 2009).

Most recently, he has joined Jonathan Caulkins, Angela, Hawken, and Beau Kilmer in writing two books in Oxford's "What Everyone Needs to Know" series, one on *Drug Policy* and, most recently, one on *Marijuana Legalization*. He edits the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis and blogs at The Reality-Based Community (http://www.samefacts.com). His essay in Foreign Affairs, "Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars: Smarter Strategies for Both Sides of the Border," presents an innovative approach to reducing drug-trafficking violence.


Mr. Kleiman studied political science, philosophy, and economics at Haverford College and received his Master of Public Policy degree and his Ph.D. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where he also taught before coming to UCLA. His governmental experience includes stints on Capitol Hill (working for Les Aspin), in Boston City Hall, and at the Justice Department. His firm, BOTEC Analysis Corporation, advises local, state, and national governments on drug policy and crime control.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An End to Prohibition? September 18, 2012

By Henry Abraham

Format:Paperback

With nearly universal agreement that the War on Drugs has done more to spur the illicit drug trade than to stop it (even the current Drug Czar concedes the point), now comes the idea of marijuana legalization. 74% of Americans support its use as medicine. To date 17 states have made it legal for that purpose. Can the Feds be far behind?

Four scholars with a background in drug policy analysis at the RAND Corporation now weigh in on the question. One could not ask for a more balanced and clear treatment of the controversy. For readers in a hurry let me reveal that three support legal weed, and one doesn't. But you'd miss a great deal if you didn't read more.

Making something illegal that a lot of people want puts a smile on the faces of criminals the world over. Drug policy is the largest reason there exists a 600 billion dollar a year drug trade. It is the reason the U.S. has the world's largest prison system. It also makes criminals out of millions of otherwise law abiding citizens who smoke marijuana.
Despite the trillion dollars spent in the War on Drugs over the last forty years, and the 750,000 marijuana arrests each year in the US, the majority of American high schoolers still report that weed is "easy to get." Half of the seniors used it in 2011. No wonder. The cost for weed use comes in at less than a dollar per stoned hour, a lot cheaper than the ticket to see The Dark Knight.

Weed is, well, a weed. It's easy to grow. A small house with grow lights can yield a retail crop of $2.5 million. In the U.S. economists estimate that weed production is in the top 15 of cash crops, on par with potatoes and grapes. If marijuana use occurs de facto, why not end its prohibition?

Not so fast, say the authors. Making weed legal is likely to increase the numbers of people dependent on it. It accounts for the second highest number of drug treatment admissions. 90% of all weed use starts by the age of 21, and evidence shows it's more harmful to the young. Our legal intoxicants, alcohol and tobacco, now cause incalculable harm. Big tobacco and liquor have shamelessly marketed to the young. Is there anyone who believes that commercial weed producers would act any better? Cold feet in Washington are the norm on this one. But legalization appears to be occurring piece meal, and that may not be such a bad thing.

These authors note, "Legalization is the opposite of prohibition. It avoids the costs of prohibition- loss of liberty, criminal enterprise, and the need for reinforcement- at the risk of increased drug abuse." In the end, it is also more honest. The claim that marijuana is medicine is largely unproven, but legalization would make it less of a battle cry and more of an interest to pharmacologists. Marijuana sales would provide tax revenues. Drug cartels would lose the weed market (but cocaine or heroin sales would still keep them in business). Drug arrests would be cut in half. Probationers and parolees would stop being returned to prison simply for smoking weed. Because persons of color are arrested for weed seven times more than whites, despite no greater use, this form of racism would vanish. As the authors note, "letting people do more of what they like doing, at lower cost and with fewer risks, fears, and penalties- ought to count, by all the canons of ordinary economic reasoning, as potential benefits of making marijuana legally available."

But legalization would still be a social experiment writ large. How many more drug dependent people would it create? Would addicts of other drugs "trade down" to a legal substitute? Could we change the focus of the War on Drugs from one of cops and crops to one of prevention and treatment? Caulkins et al. agree that permissive alcohol and tobacco laws alongside marijuana prohibition make no sense. But the authors are not street drug cowboys. The three authors supporting legal weed are unified in doing it with our eyes open. That means keeping tabs on the costs and benefits. Legalizing state by state has something to offer here, if simply because they can be compared to those where the drug is still illegal. Among the book's many good ideas is that any legalization law should have a sunset provision- a point in time when the law stops, and we all take a hard look at whether we are moving in the right direction.

To date the controversy over legal marijuana is a clash of ignorant armies. In California where it is available by prescription, the record is more Moliere than medicine. Store fronts run by grasping doctors sell letters justifying medicinal weed to anyone with a credit card. One study of 4,000 "patients" seeking medical marijuana found that they tended to be males aged 32 who had started weed as teens and had fewer disabilities than the national average. A second study found few patients were diagnosed with diseases which weed is said to help, such as neuropathic pain and AIDS. Does it work? We don't know. In place of clinical trials, weed advocates have claimed it does by a show of hands. This may be smart politics, but it's not medical science. In the meantime, any kid in America can find a joint, but the Federal government continues to keep marijuana out of the hands of researchers who could give us better answers. This book provides a good antidote for the overly zealous on both sides.

Henry David Abraham, M.D.

37 of 48 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars What everyone should know about this book July 22, 2012

By Chris Hawkes

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is thought provoking.
It made me think of angles to the legalization debate I have never thought of.
Most of this book is based on good solid data.
However the aim of this book is to take the undecided on the subject of legalization and guide them, ever so gently away from the solid data, to persuade them that legalization will do more harm than good.
Marijuana does not fit the clinical definition of addiction. So, in 1984 Orwellian fashion, they redefine it to mean dependent.

It didn't take me many chapters to figure out the anti-legalization thrust of this book. What sealed the deal for me, was when they stated as fact, that CBD is a psychoactive (chemical) like THC. This was their first LIE. CBD does not alter consciousness.

The authors asserts opinions, sprinkles in a little fact, then asserts their opinions as facts. It is rarely a pro con argument. They rarely take an argument, and then argue against it, in debate fashion. Although they often admit there is no way of knowing some things, much of this book is speculation on things they admit is imposable to know.

If you don't know much about the legalization debate, this book can be misleading. If you are well versed on this subject and know a little about logic, this book can be thought provoking and annoying. The next generation of reefer madness propagandists may use this book to further their empire.

What I think about legalization,

I believe the majority of us want a moral and just society to live in. Cannabis is more healthy and is more likely to promote social harmony than alcohol and tobacco. I believe many people will quit the more harmful and addictive drugs alcohol and tobacco and switch to cannabis. Legal cannabis will be cheaper than alcohol; is not a logical argument that a significant percentage of the population would rush out and abuse it to the detriment of themselves and the greater society. In fact, I have faith in human nature. I believe if marijuana was legal, many people would quit dangerous and addictive drugs in favor of a more healthy choice.

P.S.
I think, advertising and promoting the use of alcohol and tobacco is a detriment to society. In all fairness, cannabis should not be advertised or promoted through mass media either. Also, quality controls should be placed on retail cannabis to insure consumer safety.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the most useful single volume on the subect July 7, 2012

By Alejandro S. Hope

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is extremely useful for anyone interested in drug policy in general and the marijuana legalization debate in particular. It provides a comprehensive, yet very readable review, of available scientific evidence on the many facets of marijuana, as well as providing extensive information on the economics of legalization. In contrast to most other volumes on the subject, it is balanced and even-handed. More importantly, it breaks out of the sterile legalization/prohibition binary framework and describes a wide range of potential regulatory alternatives (all with pors and cons). All in all, a great read.