SAM provides its latest accounting of "Lessons Learned from State Marijuana Legalization"

The leading national group opposed to modern marijuana reforms, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), celebrated the 4/20 holiday by releasing this 71-page report titled "Impact Report 2023-2024: Lessons Learned from State Marijuana Legalization."  The report starts with this background:

Contrary to federal law, under which the possession and sale of marijuana are illegal (Controlled Substances Act, 1971), several states have legalized the cultivation, commercial sale, and use of marijuana, beginning in 2012.  Despite this, dozens of states continue to reject the legalization of marijuana.  The vast majority of localities in “legal” states also ban the production and retail sale of marijuana.  Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, although pro-marijuana lobbyists are actively working to undue this.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) compiled publicly available federal and state-level data, reports, investigatory findings, peer-reviewed studies, and government health surveys to assemble this report.  We have attempted to be as transparent as possible in our evaluation so as to allow readers to trace our steps and further their own research.

The SAM report thereafter mines an extraordinary amount of data seeking to detail myriad harms from modern marijuana reforms.  However, as I have noticed in this past, some of SAM's numbers look a bit hinky.  For example, a graphic on page 10 claims that annual marijuana taxes comprised only 0.09% of Colorado's state budget.  But this Urban Institute report indicates that Colorado is raising 1.7% of its revenue through marijuana taxes for the same year in the SAM report. (And this report from my own Drug Enforcement and Policy Center had a previous year's tax data from Colorado sources reporting marijuana taxes amounting to 2.08% of total tax revenue.)  Similarly, but less serious, on page 6, a graphic claims certain data shows a 1,375% increase, when the data actually show only an increase 1/3 that large.

Though one-sided in the mining of data, this SAM report serves as an impressive collection and presentation of information painting marijuana reform in a poor light.  And the report concludes with this recommendation:

Policy makers and the public need real-time data on both the consequences of legalization and related monetary costs.  Meanwhile, we should pause future legalization efforts and implement public health measures such as potency caps in places that have legalized.  In addition, the industry’s influence on policy should be significantly curtailed. SAM recommends research efforts and data collection focus on the following categories:

1. Emergency room and hospital admissions related to marijuana.

2. Marijuana potency and price trends in the “legal” and illegal markets.

3. School incidents related to marijuana, including studies involving representative datasets.

4. Extent of marijuana advertising toward youth and its impact.

5. Marijuana-related car crashes, including THC levels even when testing positive for alcohol.

6. Mental health effects of marijuana.

7. Admissions to treatment and counseling intervention programs.

8. Cost of implementing legalization from law enforcement to regulators.

9. Cost of mental health and addiction treatment related to increased marijuana use.

10. Cost of needing, but not receiving, treatment.

11. Effect on the market for alcohol and other drugs.

12. Cost to workplace and employers, including impact on employee productivity.

13. Effect on minority communities, including arrests, placement of marijuana establishments, and quality of life indicators.

14. Effect on the environment, including water and power usage.