How can we best answer this question: "Does marijuana legalization bring crime?"

Audacy News has this notable new piece headlined "Does marijuana legalization bring crime?  The data may surprise you."  Unfortunately, the piece does not provide a lot of new or sophisticated data on this important question, but the article still is a useful review of the debate over marijuana reform and public safety.  Here are short excerpts from the lengthy piece:

Looking back on a decade of data, did any of the dire predictions come true about weed mania? The short answer appears to be 'no.' If anything, states with legal weed have had declining rates of overall crime.

For the purposes of this study, Audacy used the numbers publicly available from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Data Explorer website. Then we honed in on the year of legalization for all 17 states (and D.C.) and looked at the year prior and the year following legalization.

What we found: There wasn’t much change. Certainly not enough change was evident to warrant making it a key talking-point either for or against legalization.... It seems the definitive answer to this continuing question is that there isn’t one.

For a host of reasons, research on the relationships between marijuana reform and crime presents a host of challenges.  But, as highlighted in this post at my other blog, I am helping with an event that looks to explore and tackle some of these challenges.

Related posting:

Call for Papers: "Drugs and Public Safety: Exploring the Impact of Policy, Policing, and Prosecutorial Reforms"