I advocated full legalization; I was wrong

On Thursday, Oct. 6, President Biden — in perhaps the most sweeping presidential pardon issued since President Jimmy Carter pardoned those Americans who had evaded military service in Vietnam — announced that he would be pardoning all American citizens convicted of federal marijuana possession charges. Immediately, this pardon impacted the estimated 6,500 individuals previously federally convicted across the United States and, crucially, in the District of Columbia. However, more fundamentally, this action, with the president’s encouragement, is inviting further conversation aimed at legalizing marijuana nationwide or, at the very least, downgrading it from a Schedule I substance “under the Controlled Substances Act.”

Interestingly enough, just days before, the Republican Study Committee — as part of its “Family Policy Agenda” — announced its strong opposition to efforts to legalize marijuana at the federal level. This memorandum, though arguably overstating the dangers of recreational marijuana, rightly focuses primarily on the drug’s impact on children. But before the Republican Study Committee, to which nearly three-fourths of House Republicans belong, is unduly accused of stodginess, being retrograde, or being “out of step with the times,” there is reason even for more dispassionate observers of the war on drugs to be circumspect about this ascendant push for full-scale marijuana legalization.

The issue of drug liberalization, along with that of capital punishment, is one where I have, in part, changed my mind as I now turn away from the full-throated defense of legalization I offered in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2013. Viewing it now through a different lens than the purely libertarian perspective that it is not the business of government to restrict what an autonomous individual might choose to put into his body, it has become increasingly clear to me that this seemingly private choice has outward, social manifestations. And drug liberalization has been associated with more young people using marijuana.

Colorado, serving as a “laboratory of democracy,” offers mixed results on its marijuana experiment; though the number of people seeking treatment for marijuana use declined by 34 percent after legalization in 2012, marijuana use in Colorado youth was “74 percent higher than the national average compared to 39 percent higher prior to legalization,” and “62 percent of all drug expulsions and suspensions [in schools] were for marijuana violations,” thus validating the Republican Study Committee’s concerns about legalization’s impact on minors.

Furthermore, legalization was associated with increased traffic deaths in Colorado, and, unlike alcohol, it is more difficult for police officers to determine when someone is driving under the influence of that substance.

And though the cannabis industry is a growing one, legal weed is not always purely good news for business.

In 2018, CBS News reported on the prevalence of Colorado restaurant workers who reported that they regularly used marijuana, including during periods of time when they were employed, evidence very much confirmed by my own experiences dining in that state not long after the state’s drug laws were relaxed. Perhaps, most notably, the survey indicated that 30 percent of restaurant workers between the ages of 18 and 25 admitted to using the drug. Also of great importance is that marijuana use has been associated with job loss, as well as early career reduced earnings and less ideal employment experiences, particularly for young men. At a time when many Americans are increasingly concerned about the various ills affecting young men, dismissing out of hand legitimate concerns about marijuana’s effects is not likely to ease that trend.

Although it has been common to state reflexively that marijuana is rather benign, its use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other literature, is associated with a number of suboptimal health outcomes, from brain health to respiration. Even Johann Hari, the author of the largely polemical (though quite worth reading) book Chasing the Scream, which is enormously critical of drug prohibition, concedes near the end that he would rather his own teenage nephews drink beer than use marijuana, departing from those who consistently claim that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol.

As common as it has been to hear that it’s “impossible to legislate morality,” from speed limits to prohibitions on violent crimes, that is what law, in practice, does. And to the extent that we wish to discourage marijuana use, which seems a worthy societal objective, we can use law to do so. While I agree that no one should face anything resembling a lengthy incarceration for simple marijuana possession (the view that guided that spirited 2013 Philadelphia Inquirer piece), my position now is that states like Ohio chart a reasonable course, where possession of marijuana (except in municipalities that have depenalized the drug) is a finable offense, and possessing larger but not excessive quantities can result in a 30-day jail sentence.

Critics of the drug war have been correct to point out how overzealously some drug offenders have been punished, but we ought not let the pendulum swing now so far in the other direction that we ignore the health risks associated with the substance and the anti-social element that can accompany its habitual use.

Erich J. Prince co-founded and runs Merion West (@merionwest), a Philadelphia-based group promoting civil discourse in the age of polarization; he also writes a weekly column at MediaVillage on how the news media covers politics. He previously served as a communications strategist for former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory.