Legalize Pot

The federal government should legalize cannabis de jure with respect to federal law, as it has already done de facto in states that have chosen to do so, in a policy that has survived both Democratic and Republican administrations.

This commentary examines federal cannabis prohibition and enforcement through a public health lens. In the United States, approximately 47 million adults use cannabis, with federal prohibition resulting in 820,000 arrests per year. In applying social-epidemiological methodology, we examine the Potential Years of Lost Life (PYLL) of federal cannabis prohibition in the US — citing individual examples of realized lost life. We then compare the years of life lost from cannabis prohibition to the PYLL from the most deadly retail, consumer product in the world: combustible cigarettes. Our results state, resoundingly, that the most dangerous thing about cannabis — is being caught with cannabis. We confirm the conclusion reached by Greenstein & DiBianco (1972): cannabis prohibition functions as a crime against humanity.

Dale S. Mantey, LaTrice Montgomery, & Steven H. Kelder, Cannabis Prohibition - A Crime against Humanity SSRN (2022).