Reefer Badness

Are liberal marijuana policies doing more harm than good?

Photo by Wesley Gibbs on Unsplash

Back in January, the Population Reference Bureau released a fascinating report that I wrote about at the time, finding that conservative political policies are associated with earlier mortality, while more liberal policies are associated with longer lifespans. This held true for policies around guns, health care, labor protections, minimum wage, tobacco taxation, and the environment. But there was one exception: Marijuana. Conservative marijuana laws were the only conservative policy associated with better health outcomes and a longer lifespan.

That tidbit stuck with me, because it struck me as so counterintuitive. I’m not a marijuana user, but it seems obvious enough to me that marijuana use would be less dangerous to one’s health than, say, heavy alcohol use, and that the health and mortality effects of being sent to jail on drug charges would be more significant than those of marijuana use. Obviously no one should be getting behind the wheel after smoking weed, and the drug isn’t exactly known to make people more intelligent or motivated, but posing a significant threat to a person’s health and decreasing their lifespan? That came as a surprise.

That little nugget was already living in the back of my mind when I read this op/ed by Dr. Lena Wen in the Washington Post, basically scolding potheads for celebrating 4/20. It’s got a silly headline, and I suspect the case is more than a bit overstated, but it’s nevertheless worth a read. Some 12 million Americans said that they drove under the influence of marijuana last year; roughly 30% of people who use the drug have an addiction disorder. Cannabis use lowers your IQ, significantly increases the chances of psychosis, and interferes with learning and cognition.

I went back and read one of the studies finding that liberal policies save lives, with the exception of liberal marijuana policies. And it’s clear that no one is overdosing on weed; the issue with liberal marijuana policies is that they are associated with greater marijuana use, which in turn is associated with more alcohol and substance abuse, motor vehicle accidents, and suicides. And suicides seemed to be a particular problem.

Not great!

But this also hits on something people across the political spectrum are terrible at doing: Recognizing that a thing has problems, and may even do serious harm, but still believing that on balance, it should be legal. It is always easy to argue that X thing is great, has virtually no downsides, and legalizing it will do wonderful things for the country; it’s easier still to argue that Y thing is terrible, is all downside, and must be outlawed. The harder thing is examining something you like and support — in my case, marijuana legalization — and saying, huh, there are some unintended negative consequences here, and those are worth addressing head-on.

Which doesn’t mean criminalizing marijuana, even though, in a highly legalistic society like the US, that’s the impulse whenever anyone says “hey maybe this isn’t ideal.”

Just to be clear, it’s not like marijuana is some sort of super danger drug. For the most part, it just makes people relaxed — not great if you’re in charge of operating heavy machinery or doing complex math or even driving yourself home at night, but altogether fine if you’re sitting on the couch watching Real Housewives and microwaving a burrito. Marijuana criminalization laws were put into place because of racism, and they were enforced radically unequally, resulting in millions of arrests, disproportionately of Black people. Those who have long fought to decriminalize and legalize weed have a righteous cause, and they have seen some remarkable wins in the last few years. It would be insane to go back to the bad old days of nationwide marijuana criminalization laws, and I’m pleased to see that the country is moving in a better direction.

But the same way that Americans have a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol and food, we seem to be developing a dysfunctional relationship with weed. And instead of simply emphasizing that weed is natural and harmless — or that it’s a dangerous “gateway drug” that will ruin your life — it would make a whole lot of sense to better circulate accurate, scientifically-verified information on marijuana risks, including who is most at risk for which issues (psychosis, depression, suicide) and what might be done to mitigate those risks. We could really stand to do this for alcohol too, by the way.

Americans live in a pretty black-and-white culture, and often want things to be “good” or “bad.” The truth is that most of life’s pleasures, from food to sex to booze to all the things we use to shift our realities, can be either good or bad, or neither, and are often somewhere on the broad spectrum in between. One trick to living in a functional society is figuring out how to maximize individual freedoms while providing necessary support to keep people safe and healthy, all without encroaching on the rights of others. Often, the harsh hand of criminal law is the worst possible tool for navigating the many complex pieces that make up a pluralistic society. Perhaps nowhere is that more true than when it comes to drugs.

Liberals like to think of ourselves as “follow the science” people. We are rightly quick to point out that liberal social policies have tangible benefits for human health and longevity — that liberalism literally saves lives. It’s a message we should keep on hammering as conservatives continue pushing policies that are proven to cause mass suffering and early death, including abortion criminalization, climate change denial, gun extremism, and worker exploitation.

But we also need to check our own assumptions about which policies are working against the research and data, and when we see a problem — and liberal marijuana policies being associated with earlier morality is a problem — we need to face it and fix it. Otherwise, we’re ceding not just the moral high ground but the potential response to the other guys. And I don’t think we’re going to like their solutions.

xx Jill