Since legalization has become a hot topic over the last few years many are questioning the way it is being implemented within the states. According to an article on Vox, many of the states who are legalizing are choosing to regulate marijuana like it is alcohol. As it turns out, regulating weed as if it were a completely different substance doesn’t work out too well.
As of now, 18 states in the USA have commercial legalization. In many other states, including Washington DC, legalization is on the way. Many of the experts and advocates who have been studying the effects legalization has on states concur, regulating marijuana like alcohol could be devastating. Experts believe that if marijuana is treated like alcohol, it could lead to a “Big Marijuana” industry that has control over the market. This could parallel other industries like tobacco, alcohol, and opioid industries.
Previous research has insinuated that the way alcohol is regulated does not work well enough. This includes other regulation methods such as the caffeine industry. Alcohol, the USA’s second most popular drug behind caffeine leads to nearly 100,000 deaths each year, more than the sum of car crashes and murders.
Another argument is that unlike alcohol, you cannot smoke yourself to death. This leads experts to believe that regulating marijuana should be in a completely different sector than alcohol.
Read the whole article on Vox, here.
