Studies have repeatedly identified an association between the legalizing marijuana and reductions in crime\u2014but the impact of the policy change is being significantly understated because of limitations in the research methodology, a new paper co-authored by a federal official asserts.<\/p>\n
Most studies looking at crime and cannabis rely on FBI data sourced from local police departments across the country. But reporting that data to the federal agency is entirely voluntary, leaving knowledge gaps that have underplayed the extent to which legalizing medical cannabis reduces violent and property crime.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA) Economic Research Service and Appalachian State University, who published a working paper with their findings this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. drug policy presumes prohibition reduces crime. Recently states have enacted medical marijuana laws creating a natural experiment to test this hypothesis but is impeded by severe measurement error with available data,\u201d the abstract states.<\/p>\n
To account for those shortcomings, the researchers developed \u201ca novel imputation procedure to reduce measurement error bias and estimate significant reductions in violent and property crime rates, with heterogeneous effects across and within states and types of crime, contradicting drug prohibition policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe demonstrate uncorrected measurement error or assuming homogeneous policy effects leads to underestimation of crime reduction from ending marijuana prohibition,\u201d the authors said<\/a> in the paper, which is titled, \u201cSmoke and Fears: The Effects of Marijuana Prohibition on Crime.\u201d<\/p>\n To improve upon existing research, the study authors said they used a \u201cmultiple imputation procedure for agency-level crime data to fill in the gaps in the [Uniform Crime Reporting] data that accounts for the inherent uncertainty in these imputed values in the subsequent statistical analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur results indicate that [medical marijuana laws] result in significant reductions in both violent and property crime rates, with larger effects in Mexican border states,\u201d they wrote. \u201cWhile these results for violent crime rates are consistent with previously reported evidence, we are the first paper to report such an effect on property crime as well. Moreover, the estimated effects of MMLs on property crime rates are substantially larger, which is not surprising given property crimes are more prevalent.\u201d<\/p>\n While the study specifies that the USDA\u2019s official\u2019s involvement in the study \u201cshould not be construed to represent\u201d the government\u2019s position on the issue, it\u2019s notable that an agency representative even participated and effectively reached the conclusion that the theory that criminalizing drugs\u2014as the federal government has done for decades\u2014reduces crime seems to be unfounded.<\/p>\n Other data has similarly challenged the notion that prohibition reduces crime.<\/p>\n In 2020, researchers looked at how adult-use marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado affected crime rates in neighboring states, and the resulting study determined that passage of recreational cannabis laws may have actually reduced certain major crimes<\/a> in nearby jurisdictions.<\/p>\n The previous year, a federally funded study found that legalizing marijuana has little to no impact on rates of violent or property crime<\/a>. The policy change did seem connected to a long-term decline in burglaries in one state, however.<\/p>\n A 2018 study from the think tank RAND<\/a> said county-level data from California suggested that there was \u201cno relationship between county laws that legally permit dispensaries and reported violent crime,\u201d the researchers wrote. What\u2019s more, there was a \u201cnegative and significant relationship between dispensary allowances and property crime rates,\u201d though it\u2019s possible that\u2019s the product of \u201cpre-existing trends.\u201d<\/p>\n That same year, researchers at Victoria University of Wellington and Harvard University found that medical marijuana laws essentially have a null effect of crime rates<\/a>, with one big exception: A nearly 20 percent reduction in\u00a0violent and property crimes in California following the legalization of medical cannabis there.<\/p>\n DEA marijuana seizures have significantly declined<\/a> as more states have moved to legalize cannabis, a new study led by a top marijuana investigator for the federal government found. And at the same time, marijuana arrests are also dropping<\/a>\u00a0across the country, and they dipped significantly in 2020, recent FBI data shows.<\/p>\n Federal marijuana trafficking cases also\u00a0continued to decline in 2020 as more states have moved to legalize<\/a>, an analysis from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) that was released in June found.<\/p>\n Federal prosecutions of drug-related crimes overall increased in 2019, but\u00a0cases involving marijuana dropped by more than a quarter<\/a>, according to a report released by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts that year.<\/p>\n A study released by the Cato Institute in 2018 found that \u201cstate-level marijuana legalization has\u00a0significantly undercut marijuana smuggling.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n DEA Proposes Dramatic Increase In Marijuana And Psychedelic Production In 2022, Calling For 6,300 Percent More MDMA Alone<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Impact Of Marijuana Legalization On Crime Reduction Is Being Underestimated, New Study Finds<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Studies have repeatedly identified an association between the legalizing marijuana and reductions in crime\u2014but the impact of the policy change is being significantly understated because of limitations in the research methodology, a new paper co-authored by a federal official asserts. Most studies looking at crime and cannabis rely on FBIContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,15462],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50521,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50520\/revisions\/50521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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