marijuana legalization

Few things in life go together better than marijuana and food. Whether ingested together or separately, they are a match made in heaven.

So much in pop culture – movies, TV shows, books, radio and Internet shows – has used the “stoner stereotype” of the “munchies” to great effect. Pot brownies have been used as hilarious comedy devices for decades.

But in reality, because of the prohibition of cannabis, it’s not something that has been talked about all the much out in the “real world” as opposed to the “underground” where marijuana users have been forced to dwell.

When Oregon voters decided to legalize marijuana for all adults in 2014, activists and cannabis business owners were understandably elated. But one of the stipulations of Oregon’s Measure 91 was that counties and towns the ability to ban marijuana businesses if they so chose. And many jurisdictions decided to do just that.

The eyes of the cannabis community are focused on several states this election season, but none have more focused on them than California.

And no initiative has generated more controversy than the marijuana legalization measure in California, Proposition 64.

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that people aged 35-44 are slightly more likely to use cannabis than people aged 12-17 in the United States.

According to the just-released data from 2014, about 8% of middle-aged adults have used cannabis in the last month, compared to 7.4% of those aged 12 to 17.

So far in 2016 – up to July 31^st – the state of Oregon has collected more than $25 million in taxes from legal marijuana retail sales. There was a time when the Oregon Liquor Control Commission had anticipated only collecting about $18.4 million over the course of two years.

We hear it all the time: legal marijuana needs to be “tightly regulated.” There needs to be certain “rules” and “restrictions” and “licenses.” As more states legalize cannabis, more hoops are created for people to jump through to get into the industry.

Of course, in relative terms, jumping through hoops is better than going to jail or having a criminal record. And in terms of economic activity and jobs, a heavily-regulated legal cannabis industry is better than no industry at all. But the legal marijuana industry has the potential to be so much more.

According to a new report published in JAMA Pediatrics, more children are going to the emergency room in Colorado for accidental cannabis exposure since recreational sales began in the state in 2014. More reports are also being made to the poison control center for the same reason.

Of course opponents of legalization will latch onto this news as proof that legalization is horrible for “the children!” But to be fair we must examine all the factors at work here.