
The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations - prostoalex
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/dose-reality-effect-state-marijuana-legalizations
======
runesoerensen
_> The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking
given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents._

No kidding - let me just quote Kofi Annan's excellent essay on the subject
(published a couple of months before the UN failed to course correct at UNGASS
2016):

 _" Nowhere is this divorce between rhetoric and reality more evident than in
the formulation of global drug policies, where too often emotions and ideology
rather than evidence have prevailed."_

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/kofi-annan-on-
why-...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/kofi-annan-on-why-drug-
bans-are-ineffective-a-1078402.html)

~~~
FuckOffNeemo
Your quote nails my sentiment on the matter of drug legalisation.

The conversation shown here within HN is fascinating, from an outliers
perspective.

The benefits and effects of the legalisation of Marijuana I would assume, have
been well documented by now though the quantity of these reports, I would
assume to be small in number. Surely it's a benefit if the number of these
reports and articles were increased.

Surely the reports from Canberra (Australia, where plant ownership is
legalised) and Amsterdam are quite numerous? And they would back the sentiment
shown in this article?

The argument about the 'divorce between rhetoric and reality' around drug
policy has enough merit to renew the conversation on drug legalisation by it's
self.

Once that conversation begins, the number of reports and articles such as this
will increase and potential arguments about a single report being either
biased or anecdotal will be minimised as the scientific method is leveraged.

The conversation should steered towards why drug policy is inaccurate and what
we need to do to have laws and systems changed, socially and politically, to
cater for more evidence based studies on drug use.

Edit:

A TED talk on the topic that I found interesting.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_nadelmann_why_we_need_to_end...](https://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_nadelmann_why_we_need_to_end_the_war_on_drugs?language=en)

Disclaimer: occasionally I like to smoke weed. So by the sentiment of everyone
here, I'm probably biased and my arguments should be subjected to criticism
and be entirely disregarded as lacking merit.

(see what I did there? ;-D)

~~~
gcb0
you failed to read the one paragraph conclusion.

both pro and cons arguments were wrong. absolutely nothing relevant has
changed.

crime didnt go up nor down. neither did taxes. etc. nada.

also, ted is only relevant to rich pot heads ;)

~~~
redwood
That's partially because it has not been legalized in a non-nearly-
exclusively-caucasian state yet. Meaning it hasn't been legalized in a state
where there are many marijuana arrests.

I'm not exageratting... I've never met a caucasian person who's been arrested
for marijuana posession. _Never_. And yet here in NYC alone, on the order of
50,000 people (almost exclusively of color) are arrested every year for
marijuana possession. This gives them a record. This means they can't get jobs
or take financial aid.

This Cato report, quite frankly, is a painfully long bore that ignores the
dynamics at play that make Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska uniquely
atypical test-beds.

~~~
soundwave106
The Cato report unfortunately did not go into arrests. It may seem like
stating the obvious, but from what I see, that's one area where there
legalization _has_ been significant impact. Even in states like Colorado which
are less racially diverse than some, arrests have decreased a lot and court
filings have plummeted. (See:
[http://cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ors/docs/reports/2016-SB13-283-R...](http://cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ors/docs/reports/2016-SB13-283-Rpt.pdf))

A policy which has no significant impact, except to stop law enforcement from
wasting time on trivialities, is fine by me.

------
zkhalique
I would express the same sentiment about illegal immigrants. This is to all
the people who support Donald Trump's rhetoric about deporting all 11 million
undocumented immigrants. These people fled the drug gangs and violence that
our war on drugs helped create (think fleeing ISIS) and came to work jobs no
one else would take and make a better life for their family. Yes technically
they broke a law.

If you're going to argue that we as a country of laws should deport them all
back, then I hope you and your family never smoked pot because you broke a
law. And since we are a nation of laws - including minimum sentencing laws
which the prison industrial complex loves - how would you like it if they
looked for you and put you in jail for a victimless crime? Drop your double
standard. The Mexican immigrant is better than the potsmoker because they fled
violence, wanted to make a better life for their family AND helped do the jobs
no one else would. The potsmoker chose to smoke and helped no one except the
drug dealers.

Plus we did that already, and it was a disaster:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation)
\-- an estimated 1.2 million US citizens were deported. Plus until 1965,
immigration was unrestricted from Mexico and Canada so many of the 11 million
broke a law by staying, but not by coming.

You have heard all these myths. The fact is, immigrants have higher labor
participation, lower crime rate than the native born population. Especially
the illegal immigrants who are afraid of being caught by police and deported.
Illegal immigrants do NOT get money from the federal government - if your city
pays them take it up with your city. But they pay taxes like everyone else,
including sales tax and property taxes. So they pay into the system and get
nothing back. You want to deport them all and break up their families so you
will end up picking crops, and think this is the way to bring jobs to USA?

~~~
Kadin
> came to work jobs no one else would take

This is a particular piece of rhetoric I find distasteful. If there are jobs
that are structured such that only an illegal immigrant, who by definition
exists outside the normal labor pool and its protections, will take, that job
should not exist in that form or at that pay rate. Full stop.

So the fact that jobs that "no one else would take" exist and are being taken
by illegal immigrants _isn 't a good thing_. If you're in favor of expanded
immigration, making that claim doesn't help your case. It substantiates the
case that anti-immigration proponents have always made, which is that
immigrants take the bottom out of the labor market and help keep salaries
down.

After all, if nobody would take a job doing some particularly onerous job at a
pittance per hour, then the employer would _have_ to pay more, or automate, or
find a more efficient way of doing the job. Refusing to do these jobs is the
_correct_ response when they are clearly undercompensated.

There are lots of people in the legal labor market who do terribly unpleasant,
physically strenuous, or frankly dangerous jobs, but they typically (outside
of illegal or exploitative markets) do them for reasonable wages. Someone who
SCUBA dives in raw sewage or nuclear waste, for instance, is probably going to
demand a fair compensation for the unpleasantness of the job. The same should
be true with people who work in slaughterhouses or picking strawberries or
tarring asphalt roofs. The narrative that "Americans just won't do" certain
jobs is one that is created by cheapskate, exploitative employers who don't
want to pay the market rate for particularly ugly jobs. Parroting it is water-
carrying for these exploitative industries.

~~~
hackuser
>> came to work jobs no one else would take

> If there are jobs that are structured such that only an illegal immigrant,
> who by definition exists outside the normal labor pool and its protections,
> will take

Typically, that statement also refers to jobs that are perfectly legal, but
most Americans wouldn't take anyway. For example, many of the experienced
people reading this wouldn't drive a cab, deliver pizzas, work as unskilled
construction labor, a dishwasher or a janitor if they became unemployed.
They'd continue to look for their next IT job. And they'd be choosy about that
- not selling computers at Best Buy, for example.

(I'm not putting down those jobs; personally I respect any work.)

~~~
dragonwriter
I've done almost all of those things before (general maintenance rather than
construction, and I've never driven a cab) -- including retail sales at an
electronics chain (Radio Shack before Best Buy was the thing) -- and would
again if I didn't have better prospects elsewhere (with my experience and
expectations of the future labor market, I don't expect to need to do any of
those things again, but that's a different thing than being unwilling to
consider it if there was a need.)

I suspect that's not all that uncommon here (well, maybe not having done as
many of the less-skilled jobs you talk about, but not being unwilling if it
was genuinely the best prospect.)

~~~
icantdrive55
I have a feeling you are more like the average person here.

When the economy goes into a recession, or our current line of work is down
sized; we take a chit job.

Only the elite can wait around until something palatable opens up.

My problem with people so desperate for money, is they come here illegailly,
or just happen to somehow get some bogus paperwork by the federal government,
and will do practically any job.

A large swath of American employers know they can use these people, treat them
poorly, and make a better ROI in their particuliar business venture.

Construction trades--love them. It's gotten so bad, if I took my general
contractor's licence out of non-op status, I honest don't know if I could be
competitive without hiring the people who will work for minimum wage, or less.

("How do these workers manage to live on the U.S., if you pay them so little?
They have different cultural norms than the average American. They see nothing
wrong with bunk beds, and four, or more to a residential bedroom. Maybe the
average American should get used to living like this; that's another debate.)

So basically, my gripe is certain employers are thrilled they can get away
with underpaying their employees. If they do it shroudly, they can live the
American Dream--nice house, happy wife, a bunch of spoiled kids.

There are so many business that use this business model.

I have very wealthy neighbors in Marin County. Yes, that liberal enclave north
of San Francisco. Literally every landscaper on this block doesn't speak
English, nor do most of the plumbers, and handymen. The DINK's like to gab,
and a lot of the talk is just how cheap they get their jobs done. My next
store neighbor literally brings two low wage helpers to Home Depot in her
Mercedes. Their job is to follow her around, in her high heals, and carry her
stuff to the car. Then they spend the rest of the day at her disposal. (I'm
glad they are doing this job.)

In the end, it makes chit jobs hard to find when Americans are layed off, or
fired.

Before we had this huge sector of society that will literally do anything, for
practically noting; chit jobs were better. That was in the 80's, and 90's. By
the 2000's it was over. They were here, and spoiled the low wage job sector
even further.

That's where the anger comes in. It has nothing to do about Trumps claims of
"Rapists--and sometimes, good citizens", etc.

~~~
dragonwriter
> My problem with people so desperate for money, is they come here illegailly,
> or just happen to somehow get some bogus paperwork by the federal
> government, and will do practically any job.

Why have a problem with those people? To me, that makes about as much sense
having a problem with the relative economic success of the United States,
which is why the US has been (until the recent economic crisis) an attractive
place for such people to seek to go.

Why not, instead, have a problem with the features of the system in the US
that fail to address (or actively make worse) the social costs of such
desperation, including, but not limited to:

(1) a legal immigration system with, in most immigrant visa categories, hard
per-country numerical limits which are not aligned with demand, creating the
incentive for illegal immigration (simply eliminating per country limits in
most visa categories and assigning available slots from one global pool would
vastly reduce illegal immigration; removing hard numerical limits and charging
fees to mitigate the social costs of excess immigration beyond existing caps
would reduce it even further _and_ allow surplus immigration demand to be a
source of public revenue rather than a cost hole.)

(2) poor enforcement of labor rules, both where it comes to enforcing who-can-
legally-work requirements, but also wage, hour, tax, and benefit rules
(without poor enforcement on both sides of this equation, the _effect_ of
illegal immigration on wages and working conditions would be far less, and the
_draw_ for illegal immigrants would be far less.)

------
gregschlom
This is really interesting in light of the current political discussions:

"Until 1913 marijuana was legal throughout the United States under both state
and federal law. Beginning with California in 1913 and Utah in 1914, however,
states began outlawing marijuana, and by 1930, 30 states had adopted marijuana
prohibition. Those state-level prohibitions stemmed largely from anti-
immigrant sentiment and in particular racial prejudice against Mexican migrant
workers, who were often associated with use of the drug. Prohibition advocates
attributed terrible crimes to marijuana and the Mexicans who smoked it,
creating a stigma around marijuana and its purported “vices.”"

One century later, the prejudices haven't changed.

~~~
sverige
J. Edgar Hoover worked hard to demonize it and to make it a federal crime in
the '30s with the aid of such laughable propaganda as Reefer Madness. It
helped him justify the growth in power and scope of the FBI. (I hope it's not
yet a crime to publicly say that the federal government or any of its agencies
would use propaganda to promote their agenda....)

~~~
neonscribe
You may be thinking of Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He
was mainly responsible for the racially motivated propaganda campaign against
marijuana in the 1930's.

~~~
sverige
I think you're right. This reminded me of the classic Wild Man Fischer song,
"I'm Working for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics."

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obn3mb_wQjs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obn3mb_wQjs)

------
jonah
The medical community in California is supportive of legalization:

 _California doctors’ lobbying group formally backs marijuana legalization_

[http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/california-
weed/...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/california-
weed/article57799473.html)

 _After backing Gavin Newsom, California nurses group gets behind pot
legalization_

[http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
alert...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
alert/article104553351.html)

------
tim333
Hooray for the scientific type approach of trying drug policies and studying
the results. I'm ambivalent about marijuana legalisation and the results look
fairly neutral but there are other policies like prescribing heroin like drugs
to addicts so as to cut out the pushers, thefts and deaths through bad drugs
that could probably save thousands of lives. I hope those get some
experimentation and testing too.

There's a small scale experiment here [http://health.spectator.co.uk/the-case-
for-prescription-hero...](http://health.spectator.co.uk/the-case-for-
prescription-heroin/)

Excerpt:

>Inspector Michael Lofts studied 142 heroin and cocaine addicts in the area,
and he found there was a 93 per cent drop in theft and burglary. ‘You could
see them transform in front of your own eyes,’ Lofts told a newspaper, amazed.
‘They came in in outrageous condition, stealing daily to pay for illegal
drugs; and became, most of them, very amiable, reasonable law-abiding people.’
He said elsewhere: ‘Since the clinics opened, the street heroin dealer has
slowly but surely abandoned the streets of Warrington and Widnes.’

~~~
cimnine
You might find reports about just this from Switzerland. Zurich started as
early as 1994 with a program, which provides clean drugs, and safe places to
take them, to proven addicts.

It's been quite a success and the program is now nation-wide and backed by
laws.

------
greggman
Maybe it was buried in there but what I didn't see is a graph showing the
amount of money spent on dealing with marijuana related crimes that is now
going to other crimes.

They pointed out crime didn't go down. Fine. All that could mean is that the
police etc focused on other crimes instead of the mostly victim-less marijuana
crimes from when it used to be illegal.

Even if expenditures on crime don't change the fact that whatever money that
was being spent catching, processing, and incarcerating marijuana users and
dealers can now be spent on something else seems like a huge win

~~~
ojbyrne
I suspect that police forces would be loath to unbundle any statistics about
marijuana-related crimes because they are going to resist any potential budget
cuts from that, and correspondingly, it will take a while for any savings to
materialized because of organization resistance.

------
Mathnerd314
A contrasting report:
[http://www.rmhidta.org/html/2016%20FINAL%20Legalization%20of...](http://www.rmhidta.org/html/2016%20FINAL%20Legalization%20of%20Marijuana%20in%20Colorado%20The%20Impact.pdf)

There are indeed significant changes in some marijuana-related statistics. The
Cato institute report has selected indicators that are relatively stable and
do not show these effects. It does not discuss the limitations of the data,
discuss data sources that were considered but not used, or include
illustrative anecdotes. It can be summarized as "we carefully picked these
graphs that didn't show anything, and we still can't rule out any effects of
legalization".

~~~
mda
Looks like this report deliberately chosen negative stats and use of non zero
y axis in some graphs made me cringe as well.

~~~
Mathnerd314
Right, they clearly set out to prove that marijuana should not have been
legalized. But from my perspective, the lack of convincing statistics is more
convincing than the Cato report's lack of any effect at all.

------
kstenerud
So, half the hn crowd see this report as a partisan biased attempt to push
legalization, and the other half see it as a partisan biased attempt to
suppress legalization...

~~~
miend
Given the Cato Institute is a libertarian policy think tank, I'm not sure how
the second group would maintain that idea.

------
Nursie
I like this, an honest analysis.

One major argument about crime I didn't see addressed was the revenues going
to organised criminal gangs before and after.

I'm also not sure about the paper's claim that advocates claim a fall in
crime, in general, from Cannabis legalisation. I can see the argument that
decriminalising and medicalising heroin addiction may decrease various forms
of crime, particulary acquisitive crime. But with cannabis?

~~~
FroshKiller
Many people get ground in the gears of the criminal justice system in the U.S.
with charges of marijuana possession. In my state, sharing with a friend can
get you hit with a possession with intent to sell or deliver charge, which is
a felony.

A felony conviction almost guarantees you'll do time. You will go to jail. You
will probably lose your job and have trouble getting a new one. Life changes
in significant ways. But in jail, you will have met people, and those people
may have opportunities for you. Some people decide that since they already
have a criminal record after that first conviction, they might as well take
risks to get by.

Let me be clear about this. I'm not saying marijuana criminalizes people. I'm
saying outlawing marijuana criminalizes people. And it's easy for me to
believe that legalizing marijuana is likely to result in an overall fall in
the rates of incidence of other types of crime.

~~~
Nursie
Oh sure, I agree wholeheartedly. I was just a bit concerned about the 'pro-
legalisation' claims they examined. Specifically they look at the claim that
decriminalising MJ would reduce crime (presumably other than possession/intent
etc related to MJ). It seemed a bit straw-man ish.

Yes, what you describe is a travesty and needs to be writ large - legalisation
may not change much _but it does reduce the number of people who get their
lives ruined by the state for no good reason_

------
aorth
Interesting! I'm from California but haven't lived there in ten years and I
thought marijuana was already legal there. Turns out that it's only _medicinal
use of marijuana_ that is legal (2010), but there is a ballot proposition for
wider legalization on the upcoming November, 2016 elections.

[https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana...](https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana_Legalization_\(2016\))

~~~
geoelectric
California's medical use law is a little special, though, in that it has
language allowing usage if it will alleviate suffering from any condition in
any way. Everyone has something, however small, so it ends up being a de facto
legalization with a hoop to jump through.

That said, I fully expect the upcoming initiative to result in recreational
legalization. It was a near miss on the last shot a few years back, and the
political climate is significantly friendlier now.

------
datashovel
tldr; "The data so far provide little support for the strong claims about
legalization made by either opponents or supporters."

~~~
simplexion
As long as you ignore the whole tax revenue part.

~~~
ypeterholmes
Exactly. By skipping over the huge $$$ profits this article reveals itself to
be pretty disingenuous.

~~~
newjersey
I think we shouldn't base our arguments for legalization on tax revenues. I
hope the tax revenue will go down as more states (I hope) will legalize.

I oppose the use of sin taxes to fund our government. I hope most people would
agree with me on that.

~~~
dragonwriter
I actually think that taxes functioning as user fees on things with
significant social costs is the ideal policy approach to internalize the
externalities at play.

~~~
newjersey
OK so let's start with a "jackass tax". People who act like jackasses and end
up in the emergency room for things like "hold my beer and watch how quickly
I'm going to climb this tree". Then progress on to people who have children.
Children cost a lot of money to the society.

We can't even agree on cap and trade which is so watered down that it
essentially gives polluters a free pass. Can we really have a serious
discussion about 'user fees on things with significant social costs"?

Maybe we ought to disincentivize marijuana use. I agree. I don't know what to
do with that money. However, I strongly believe that we should not take that
money and use it for anything beneficial to the society or to the tax
collector. Doing so will mean we will no longer disincentivize what we said
we'd disincentivize. It just becomes a tax on a minority.

------
sitharus
I would have been nice to see the trends compared to states without any
legalisation, but other than that it's a good analysis.

------
mirimir
I don't see any statistics on arrests for marijuana possession and sale. Of
course, legalization must reduce arrests for possession. But comparison with
property crime would be interesting. And I presume that there will be long-
term social and economic benefits of keeping people out of the criminal-
justice system.

------
mastratton3
I wish they would have shown comparisons to other states that didn't legalize
as opposed to trying to draw conclusions based on the same states prior
performance. In some of these cases where legalization didn't cause
significant increases, how does this compare nationally?

------
delbel
The effect on local businesses has been very positive in my area (southern
Oregon). I'm not sure about the government. Honestly I don't think they would
allocate the money in the best way. We have a state employee retirement
program that is in the red billions of dollars, I suspect that is where the
money will go to first.

------
JoeAltmaier
Are traffic accidents categorized under 'crime'? Didn't we read here recently
about the rise in fatal collisions due to impaired drivers? How does that
factor into the analysis?

~~~
idm
The stat is not for 'impaired' drivers. Due to the testing procedure used,
which lacks accuracy in the time domain, the stat is: 'has used cannabis this
month.'

More people are able to use cannabis when it is legal, so this number would be
expected to increase.

------
thecrow1213
Thanks for sharing, very interesting stuff. The more unbiased studies we have
like this the better.

~~~
fuzzywalrus
I wouldn't refer to the Cato Institute as anything but biased, as it's a neo-
con libertarian think tank funded by the Koch Brothers but this particular
study is fascinating simply because it IS a neo-con libertarian think tank
funded by the Koch Brothers.

~~~
PKop
Neo-con libertarian? What evidence do you have to support the claim that Cato
is neo-con?

Wikipedia cites Cato as being critical of neo-con foreign policy and the Iraq
War.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute#Libertarianism....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute#Libertarianism.2C_classical_liberalism.2C_and_conservatism)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute#On_foreign_poli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute#On_foreign_policy)

Do you know what neo-con means? Serious question

~~~
eco
I'm not terribly surprised that someone would think "neo-con" and
"libertarian" were near synonyms. A lot of people seem to have it in their
head that libertarians are just hardcore conservatives (and for some reason
think neo-con just means an extremely conservative person).

------
hackuser
Know your source: Cato is an advocate for libertarianism, at least as
envisioned by its funders, founded in part by Charles Koch, and still heavily
funded and controlled by him (and I think by his brother).

I don't mean that in a partisan way; you might love them, hate them, or not
care one way or the other, but it's always useful to know who is talking.

~~~
tw04
Libertarianism, as envisioned by the Koch brothers, is AMAZING when you're
rich. You simply remove all government functions that protect the poor from
the wealthy, and re-create feudal Europe. What's not to love???

~~~
bzbarsky
I have to ask: have you ever looked at the Koch brothers' actual views?

Because I have a hard time reconciling your strawman description with
[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/13/koch-
bros-t...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/13/koch-bros-to-
bankroll-prison-reform.html) as just one example. Or
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/08/15/clemenc...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/08/15/clemency-
the-issue-that-obama-and-the-koch-brothers-actually-agree-on/) or
[http://cjonline.com/news/2015-10-15/forfeiture-reform-
aligns...](http://cjonline.com/news/2015-10-15/forfeiture-reform-aligns-likes-
billionaire-charles-koch-aclu) for that matter. Those are not rich people
problems they're trying to address there... In fact, I would argue that in the
area of criminal justice they are _precisely_ trying to do more to protect the
poor from the wealthy.

Now I agree that on some issues they do want to remove government functions
that I would prefer remained in place. But that's not the sum total of what
they're doing, and while I disagree with them rather strongly on a lot of
their views and preferred policies I agree with them quite strongly on some
others. As does the ACLU, and our current president, for that matter.

~~~
hackuser
There are equally strong objections to their attempt to dominate the political
system by spending billions of dollars, from the local to the national level
on an extensive range of elections and organizations.[0] At one point, they
were planning to spend approximately as much as the Republican Party on this
election cycle (they don't seem to like Trump, so maybe they backed off a
little, but I don't know).[1]

Why should two voters have so much more influence than 310 million others?
It's anti-democratic.

I also think this the parent post presents an overly-moderated depiction of
their views - but I'm too busy to look it up myself right now.[0] Certainly
the existence of a few things I agree with among their extensive activities
wouldn't mean much.

[0] Wikipedia, which I wouldn't put much faith in:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Ko...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers)

and:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_Maze_of_Money.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_Maze_of_Money.png)

[1]
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/26/koch-...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/26/koch-
brothers-network-announces-889-million-budget-for-next-two-years/22363809/)

~~~
bzbarsky
> Why should two voters have so much more influence than 310 million others?

Our political funding system is broken, I agree. So is our general electoral
system: elections are _way_ too long, which makes them more expensive, of
course.

> I also think this the parent post presents an overly-moderated depiction of
> their views

By no means am I saying that everything, or most of, or a large part of, what
the Koch brothers do or think is good. I'm just saying that the claim that all
their political activity is guided by the basic principle "let's see how much
we can screw poor people" is a caricature, and not a terribly accurate one,
and providing one simple counterexample.

I'm not asking you, or anyone else, to like them personally, the sum total of
their activities, or any particular activities. All I'm asking for is that we
don't jump from "these people are doing a bunch of stuff I disagree with" to
"these people are pure evil, so anything they do must be evil, hence anything
they are involved in is evil by association and must be fought against".
Unfortunately, this last bit of reasoning is far too common in politics
recently, all across the political spectrum. Just like the related "This
organization is good, so whatever it does must be good" line of reasoning that
seems to be so common... and usually indicates that the organization should be
terminated before it does some serious harm. :(

~~~
hackuser
I agree, caricatures and knee-jerk reactions are not useful and not
informative. It prevents finding common ground, which is essential to
democracies moving forward (a good thing - I want my fellow citizens, even
those who disagree, to have a say).

------
s_m_t
New rule suggestion. You must argue at least one flaw in the study or article
before pointing out the source may be biased.

~~~
c3RlcGhlbnI_
Why? Many of the flaws that jump out at me are not so significant that they
would be worthy of concern on their own and I appreciated other people
clarifying the group's affiliations(I probably wouldn't have been curious
enough to go back and read a bit more otherwise).

Though honestly if this is a scientific study it is very strange that they
omitted their methodology entirely(how did they select the data, how did they
compare the statistics before and after, how did they account for confounding
factors, etc). That is pretty fundamental to this kind of analysis and in its
absence I would be hesitant to put much faith in even their weak conclusions.

The graphs themselves are definitely interesting though and I would not at all
be surprised if they were on the right track.

~~~
AstralStorm
If they jump out at you, it should be trivial to argue them, right?

Thus the rule is no real obstruction to dialogue.

Lack of methodology is a valid argument, as opposed to just pointing out the
funding. Why not contact them about it? Or perhaps they have used some base
sources, which could be made available to make their argument even stronger
when exposed.

------
mSparks
it would of been nice is they contrasted the "no rise in serious crime" with
the number of drug related arrests.

for me the biggest reason to have gange legal is it frees policing resources
up from processing fairly ridiculous prosecutions of people dealing in what is
basically just plant material.

so while it is nice to see there is no real impact on "other crime" the fact
they missed the impact of freeing up resources directly related to weed is a
major ommission.

and also.

god damn you americans pay a lot for it. $250 an ounce. that's ridiculous.
like more than three times the price I used to pay as a teenager for prime
amsterdam skunk.

~~~
saiya-jin
prime amsterdam stuff in official coffee shops is pretty expensive these days.
it's also so powerful that unless you are regular die hard pothead, it might
be too much to handle and enjoy.

~~~
mSparks
[http://www.amsterdamcannabis.co.uk/amsterdam-coffee-
shops/](http://www.amsterdamcannabis.co.uk/amsterdam-coffee-shops/) The
general prices range from about €6,- (£5.13) to €11,- (£9.41) for a gram of
weed or hash.

->28.3495 grams in an ounce

Prices in the coffee shops range from about €168/$188 to €280/$340 an ounce.

So yeah - gotta agree with that "pretty expensive" in the same way US at $250
an ounce is expensive.

iirc we used to pay around $50 for a half ounce of green (Been a decade or two
since I bought any though), or 9 ounces of resin was $325

I was in Egypt a month ago or so and they were trying their luck at $25 a
gram.

I wonder how long until wholesale prices pop up in the commodities indices :p

------
0verD0ses
Turns out both sides were right, but also wrong, so they basically cancel each
other out.

------
jxramos
Someone was telling me recently that all the cheap heroin influx into the
country from Mexico was the result of drug cartels losing market to marijuana
and needing to come up with a cheap competitor substitute. Not sure if that
was accurate or not but sort of sounds intuitive in an economic sense.

I'm still surprised how marijuana posts are so frequently pushed in HN. My
take is that the effect is negative, I've seen just a ton more brazen usage
out in public once this thing hit with a bunch of phony Dr prescriptions given
to perfectly healthy people. It's all a ruse in my book, you're either growing
in virtue or backsliding. At best drug use is suboptimal for a thriving philo-
generative culture to borrow Daniel Hannan's phrase.

~~~
exclusiv
Public usage can and should be managed locally as another topic though don't
you think?

As far as recreational use, fundamentally, should it be the responsibility of
the government to tell you what you can and can't ingest?

I don't think it is. I think sin taxes are stupid too. But I do understand
drug usage is a concern and suboptimal for a lot of people. I don't smoke nor
have I ever tried it, except for one cigar.

I'm asthmatic and I didn't like people smoking cigarettes in public places
because smoking sections back in the day weren't contained. Now - smoking is
generally considered uncool and it's hard to do in most public places. I've
been to smoke free cities which is their right and I think that's how it
should be.

Whatever side you're on - the evidence doesn't back up all the claims to keep
it criminal.

~~~
viraptor
> sin taxes are stupid too

They do work for health benefits though. Tax on tabacco for example does limit
the number of people who smoke, which does in turn limit the number of people
with cancer and public spending on helping them.

Same for sugary drinks tax and obesity.

~~~
robbrown451
Actually reducing tobacco use can increase public spending on health. Lung
cancer tends to take people out pretty quickly, while those who live longer
run up higher costs.

(that said, I tend to be "pro sin tax")

~~~
AstralStorm
Lung cancer caused by smoking took about a generation to show up in the
statistics. That's very much the converse of "takes people out pretty
quickly".

That said, most drugs that are schedule I have much more immediate side
effects.

~~~
robbrown451
That's not what I meant by "takes people out quickly." I mean that once
someone gets symptoms of lung cancer and needs health care as a result, they
die more quickly than someone who is starting to see the symptoms of old age
and needs health care for that.

I.e. someone who dies at age 60 from lung cancer is less cost to the system
than someone who live to 95 and dies of "natural causes."

That's not saying lung cancer is good, but it is saying that reducing health
care costs is not a good reason to try to reduce smoking.

