When marijuana legalization began in the U.S. over a decade ago, advocates promised sweeping benefits: an end to punitive treatment of users, especially minorities—thus striking a blow for social justice—and the creation of profitable, regulated markets driving economic growth. Legalization, they argued, would provide safer products and generate significant tax revenue, with minimal downsides, since so many were already smoking marijuana. Why not bring the industry out of the shadows?
Legalization has now spread to half the country, but these promises have fallen short. Usage, addiction, and mental-health issues are surging, while a violent new black market, dominated by foreign gangs, has emerged, underselling the legal industry. States are even subsidizing legal weed, raising concerns about the true costs of this new market. More Americans recognize the negative effects of marijuana on individuals and society, as shown by the failure of legalization votes in three states in November’s elections, suggesting that the momentum behind legalization may be slowing. “Legalization of pot in America has been a political decision, not a scientific one,” says Harvard Medical School psychobiology professor Bertha Madras, a leading researcher on marijuana’s effects. “And it’s a tragic one.” It’s time for a more sensible approach.
The push for legalizing recreational pot began with the 2012 elections. By then, 14 states had approved marijuana for “medical” use, mostly through public ballot initiatives. Advocates used this initiative strategy to bypass the Food and Drug Administration, as little evidence supported weed’s medicinal value. Still, the spread of legal medical marijuana began to normalize the drug’s use in voters’ minds. Supporters of the first recreational-pot ballot initiatives in Colorado and Washington State, both of which passed, built on this normalization process, promoting a list of predicted benefits, reinforced by bipartisan, well-intentioned voices.
One key argument—that the war on drugs had proved a costly failure—gained support from some Republicans, including Colorado congressman and former presidential candidate Tom Tancredo. “By keeping marijuana illegal for the last 75 years,” he wrote in a local newspaper, “we have created a black market that helps fuel some of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world.” Advocates insisted that ending the illegal market would free up to $36 million annually in law-enforcement resources in Colorado, allowing police and prosecutors to concentrate on real problems, like violent crime. In Washington, a newspaper editorial compared legalization with the end of Prohibition, assuring voters that it would take the business “out of the hands of gangs.” Supporters maintained that legalized and regulated pot would reduce teen usage, too. Government-approved cannabis, the Colorado initiative claimed, would “ensure that consumers are informed and protected” from harmful unregulated products.
Backers in Washington won endorsement from the local NAACP chapter and some black churches by framing legalization as a social-justice issue. “Our nation’s long, tragic, failed war on drugs has taken a disproportionate toll on people of color,” the NAACP’s local leader said, urging business, civic, and religious leaders in the Northwest to join the coalition; an allied black pastor called drug-law enforcement “the new Jim Crow.” Advocates started to push for compensating minority communities for the harm caused by marijuana laws, including programs in Massachusetts, New York, and California that gave minority entrepreneurs preferred pot-selling licenses. These ventures would be part of an expanding industry that, in Colorado alone, would generate nearly $100 million in state and local taxes within five years, officials projected.
Weed skeptics, who thought that other states would wait to see the results of the Colorado and Washington experiments, were naive. Activists unleashed a torrent of new legalization drives. Over the next seven years, they put ballot initiatives before voters in ten states and the District of Columbia, winning seven campaigns. Vermont and Illinois legislators also legalized the drug during that time. And the momentum accelerated. In just three years, 13 more states approved recreational pot—even during a pandemic caused by Covid-19, a serious respiratory disease. Virtually no one heeded a Centers for Disease Control warning that cannabis smoke “has many of the same toxins, irritants, and carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) as tobacco smoke” and increases the risk of bronchitis, cough, and mucus production. Even a subsequent Canadian study, showing that regular marijuana smokers were more likely than cigarette smokers to develop serious lung conditions like emphysema, failed to dampen enthusiasm. Notably, more than half the states that legalized the drug during this period did so through legislation rather than direct popular votes. Clearly, the wave of reform had convinced lawmakers that legal marijuana was what citizens wanted. Today, more than half of Americans live in places where pot is legal for recreation.
Twelve years on, one of the advocates’ early claims—that pot smoking wouldn’t increase, and might even decline, in a legal but regulated environment—appears mistaken. The latest data from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research show that cannabis consumption among those under 50 has hit historical highs. In 2023, 42 percent of respondents aged 19 to 30 reported using pot, up from 28 percent in 2012. Among those 35 to 50, 29 percent reported using the drug in the past year, compared with 13 percent in 2012. Even more striking, more than 10 percent of 19-to-30-year-olds reported daily consumption, nearly double the 2012 rate. In the 35-to-50 age group, 7.5 percent reported daily use, up from 3 percent in 2012. “These findings underscore the urgent need for rigorous research on the potential risks and benefits of cannabis and hallucinogens—especially as new products continue to emerge,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Notably, marijuana consumption has risen even as the study found continued declines in cigarette smoking and binge drinking.
The Michigan study doesn’t focus on teens, but other research reveals worrisome trends. A 2020 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which followed hundreds of children in Washington State over several years, found that teens were much more likely to report using pot after legalization. The study observed that the long-term decline in teen marijuana use had suddenly halted, leading one of the authors to suggest that legalization may be undermining efforts to reduce teen consumption.
Experts have also inferred higher rates of pot use from a sharp uptick in workers testing positive for the drug. In 2022, drug-test positivity rates reached a 25-year high, according to Quest Diagnostics, a firm that companies hire to screen workers. Among employees tested after workplace accidents, 7.3 percent tested positive—more than double the 2012 rate. The data show that legalization is fueling the surge. “In the general U.S. workforce, states that have legalized recreational and medical marijuana use exhibit higher positivity rates than the national average, while states that have not legalized marijuana show rates below the national average,” a Quest official noted.
Along with higher consumption levels comes a significant increase in pot-associated physical and mental problems, especially among frequent users. About 10 percent of new marijuana consumers will suffer from cannabis-use disorder, and roughly 30 percent of current users show signs of it—an addiction characterized by constant cravings, an inability to cut back, restlessness, dwindling motivation, and difficulties with relationships. As with other addictions, no easy, quick cures are available for the toughest cases, which means “an increasing need to develop effective treatments,” says Yale Medicine psychiatrist Deepak Cyril D’Souza.
Regular cannabis use is increasingly linked with truly severe mental-health issues. In Denmark, researchers observed a rise in schizophrenia, especially among males, over the last quarter-century, corresponding with a surge in pot addiction. A study of 45,327 schizophrenia cases in the country estimated that 25 percent to 30 percent of cases in young males were triggered or worsened by regular pot consumption. Another review of 18 studies worldwide found that “average” smokers are twice as likely as nonusers to develop schizophrenia or other severe mental illnesses; the heaviest users face a fourfold increase. The study emphasized that, “unlike other abused substances, such as alcohol, there is no current data that defines what is considered a safe amount of cannabis use in regard to the risk of developing psychosis.”
Emergency-room visits for cannabis-related issues, including psychosis, have skyrocketed. A study of Canadian drug policies found that cases of pot-induced psychosis doubled after legal retail markets were introduced. The largest increases were among men aged 19 to 24, whose hospital visit rate was four times higher than that of older adults. The study also found that low-income neighborhoods saw visit rates twice as high as the wealthiest areas. This trend isn’t limited to youth, however: a California study showed that cannabis-related visits among adults 65 and older blasted from 20 per 100,000 in 2005 to 395 per 100,000 in 2019, with black adults suffering the highest rates. With greater cannabis use during Covid-19, these numbers have likely continued to mount.
Another disturbing trend: greater pot consumption by pregnant women, influenced by the notion that cannabis can reduce nausea and stress. A study of 250,000 pregnant women found that about 20,000 tested positive for the drug. The study concluded that marijuana smokers were 17 percent likelier to suffer from hypertension and had a nearly one-in-five higher chance of experiencing a placenta abruption, which can block the baby’s supply of oxygen and nutrients and cause heavy bleeding in the mother. “Research suggests that pregnant people are bombarded with inaccurate messages from social media, cannabis retailers and peers suggesting that cannabis use during pregnancy is safe,” one of the authors said. “Our study provides timely and important data that adds to the growing body of evidence indicating that cannabis use during pregnancy is not safe.”
Researchers have begun to explore the connections between legalization and social disorder. One disquieting pattern: regular weed consumption is increasingly linked with violent behavior. A 2018 study, for example, found steady smokers far likelier psychologically or physically to abuse their domestic partners, even accounting for other risk factors. A study of college-age women discovered that, on days they used marijuana, the probability of psychological aggression in their dating life rose. British researchers who tracked violent offenders from their childhood through late adult life noted that pot smoking was common among them and associated with a ninefold escalation in violence. “[T]hese results provide strong indication that cannabis use predicts subsequent violent offending, suggesting a possible causal effect, and provide empirical evidence that may have implications for public policy,” the researchers wrote.
“Regular weed consumption is increasingly linked with violent behavior. A 2018 study found steady smokers far likelier to abuse their domestic partners.”
The legalization of recreational marijuana has also coincided with a homelessness epidemic. A 2023 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City estimated that chronic homelessness rises 35 percent following legalization. This may partly reflect an influx of people attracted to areas with legal pot. For instance, Colorado experienced a worsening of homelessness in the three years after recreational marijuana was permitted, along with greater disorder and violence in areas where the homeless gathered. In 2016, then-mayor Michael Hancock linked the spike in downtown Denver violence to marijuana legalization, noting that many “urban travelers” told him that they had moved to the city because of the new pot laws. A survey of homeless individuals in Colorado jails later found that one-third had come to the state since legalization in 2012.
The majority of homeless people struggle with substance abuse, mental-health issues, or both, and surveys of jailed or hospitalized homeless populations reveal that many are cannabis users. Given the connection between pot and psychosis, the easier availability of the drug may pose an extra risk for those already vulnerable to homelessness.
Rather than ending the black market, as proponents claimed would happen, recreational-pot laws have incentivized a new illicit trade—what some call the black market 2.0—notable for the involvement of global criminal gangs. The new market has developed because states, wanting to be cautious post-legalization and seeking to benefit financially from pot revenues, have imposed certification standards and taxes on legal operations. As legalized weed normalized use, outlaw groups moved in to undercut the approved businesses, saturating the market with product and driving down prices.
In Oregon, officials estimate that 1,000 to 2,000 illegal cultivation operations are active in a remote, 4,000-square-mile area in the state’s southern region. Chinese and Russian cartels have reportedly offered up to $1 million in cash to locals to take over their properties. In the greater Denver area, Chinese crime syndicates bought hundreds of homes and businesses, converting them into grow houses. When officials dismantled the enterprise, they seized 80,000 marijuana plants and $2.2 million in cash. In California, where legal growers lobbied—ironically—for a “new war on drugs,” authorities found 44 illegal farms on and around federal land, mostly run by drug-trafficking groups. In 2022 alone, the state’s crackdown led to the seizure of more than 1 million plants worth $1 billion, 100 tons of processed cannabis, and 184 weapons.
Violence plagues this lucrative market. Chinese gangs have seized control of 2,500 to 3,000 illegal pot farms in rural Oklahoma, supplying markets in other states. Several murders have been linked to this trade, along with human trafficking—women smuggled into the U.S. to work as prostitutes for farm laborers. Gang violence is often associated with harder drugs like opioids and heroin, but a DEA official recently noted that “marijuana causes so much crime at the local level, gun violence in particular.” In Las Vegas, 58 percent of drug-related murders involve marijuana, according to a police captain. Individuals arrested for illegal interstate marijuana sales in Oregon were also charged with kidnapping, money laundering, and firearm-related crimes.
Meantime, the slow rollout of licensed pot shops in New York City, where only 60 state-approved dispensaries are in operation three years after the legislature legalized marijuana, has unleashed a tsunami of illegal retailers, forcing authorities into a new war on pot sellers. After state officials authorized local authorities to clamp down on these illegal sellers, cops closed some 700 unlicensed New York dispensaries in just six months. Still, hundreds more are estimated to be operating. It’s a problem that has plagued other big urban areas, too. In California, which legalized recreational pot back in 2016, officials in Los Angeles spent several years waging war on illegal sellers, shutting down hundreds of unlicensed outlets that were undercutting licensed businesses.
With such illicit activities metastasizing, legalization has not produced the expected revenue bonanza for states. In 2023, total tax revenues attributed to pot were just $3.8 billion, spread among 24 states—an average of only $160 million per government. And that figure does not include corresponding reductions in other revenue. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City estimated that states legalizing pot see a roughly 7 percent decline in taxes collected on alcohol and tobacco sales. The net state tax gains from the drug thus average only about $14 per capita.
This has led to fiscally dubious—and ethically questionable—programs to jump-start legal pot with taxpayer subsidies. California’s legislature set aside $100 million in 2021 to support the state’s “well-regulated cannabis market.” The lawmakers wanted to use the money to help marijuana entrepreneurs navigate the state’s licensing and environmental regulations. California added another $20 million in 2023, hoping to expand legal sales in “underserved areas.” Ironically, one reason legal pot is spreading slowly in the state is that nearly two-thirds of localities have banned weed stores. In other words, California’s state government is dedicating taxpayer money to boost an industry that’s struggling because many communities want nothing to do with it. In 2023, Illinois began delivering $34 million in “seed money” (no pun intended, apparently) for floundering entrepreneurs to open pot dispensaries (with average startup costs of $1 million) or growing operations (costing up to $5 million in preopening investment).
The subsidies are riddled with contradictions. After aspiring legal cannabis firms in Massachusetts sought government support, the state injected $27 million into a program aimed at helping entrepreneurs. It justified the money as a “social equity fund,” targeting communities “disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement.” Officials didn’t clarify whether the harm referred to the old war on pot—which was supposed to end with legalization—or the crackdown on the new black market. Springfield police recently raided four homes involved in illegal cultivation, estimating that each contained over $1 million in marijuana; one operation was valued at $28 million.
Efforts to expand the industry under the banner of social equity raise uncomfortable questions. In 2023, New York governor Kathy Hochul announced a $5 million plan to subsidize community college courses and credentialing programs to promote “employment in the emerging cannabis industry.” Illinois similarly has a Community College Cannabis Vocational program. Critics charge that such initiatives, combined with funding to boost pot businesses in “underserved areas,” could raise risks of harmful outcomes in vulnerable communities. (Community colleges disproportionately serve minority students.) “State-funded school programs encouraging employment in the industry can further normalize use and sale” of pot in such populations, three addiction experts recently wrote in the American Journal of Public Health.
State governments are now asking the federal government for financial aid to support their struggling pot industries. A group of Democratic senators from states with legalized weed is pushing for the Small Business Administration to authorize and guarantee loans to pot companies, a practice currently banned. “Small businesses are the backbone of Nevada’s economy,” Senator Jacky Rosen said, advocating for the reform. The proposal includes a focus on lending to businesses in minority neighborhoods disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs. This drive aligns with the Biden administration’s efforts to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule 1 drug—those considered highly addictive with no medical benefits—to Schedule 3, which includes drugs with lower abuse potential that offer potential medical benefits, such as codeine and Tylenol. Though this change wouldn’t legalize marijuana, it would further its normalization by redefining it as having potential medical applications.
Given the troubling rise in marijuana use and abuse, what should reform look like? It’s unlikely that states, having invested heavily in the commercialization of pot, will suddenly reverse course. As public awareness of the bad outcomes grows, the first step should be to curb the spread of recreational marijuana. Advocates are focusing on the 14 states that allow medical use but not recreational pot. They suffered big setbacks when recreational legalization initiatives in Florida, North Dakota, and South Dakota all failed to pass in November. In these states, opponents should promote decriminalization, which ends penalties for possession, without creating an industry that manufactures and markets the drug.
In states with legalized recreational use, the most achievable reform is setting limits on the psychoactive ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. A Drug Enforcement Agency analysis shows that THC concentrations in seized pot have risen from 4 percent to 12 percent since 1995, with some legal strains now reaching up to 30 percent. Edible products often have even higher levels. The higher the THC, the greater the risk of harmful effects. Despite promises of safer products, the industry has fought THC limits, as reduced levels would diminish the drug’s effects. Paradoxically, legal growers often produce more potent—and potentially more dangerous—products than black-market sources. Though researchers have yet to agree on a “safe” dose, many advocate for significantly lower THC levels.
The rush to legalization has set America apart from much of the rest of the world. Going forward, the U.S. might take cues from Europe, where few countries have fully legalized marijuana. Many, like Italy, Spain, and Portugal, have decriminalized it without legalizing sales. Germany approved home growing in 2024 but restricts distribution to nonprofit cannabis clubs, and Luxembourg limits possession outside the home to three grams. Some countries, observing what’s happened in the U.S., have tightened restrictions, including on medical use. The U.K.’s National Health Service, citing limited evidence of marijuana’s medical benefits, allows prescriptions only for specific conditions, such as epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
American states need to find a middle ground between full commercialization and outright criminalization. This requires honest discussions about pot’s risks and its impact on lower-income, minority communities—especially as governments subsidize marijuana businesses in these areas. It’s not far-fetched to imagine future lawsuits from these communities against local governments for promoting the spread of legal weed. The vision of legal marijuana that advocates promised has proved to be a dangerous illusion.
Top Photo: In a recent survey, more than four in ten respondents aged 19 to 30 reported using pot, up from 28 percent in 2012. (Andrea Renault/Polaris/Newscom)
