Tell us again how this is a bad thing? According to a conservative think tank panel briefing held Tuesday in Washington, D.C. based on the new book Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know, widespread legalized pot would lead to lower prices that would trigger an increase in recreational use of marijuana.
 
The briefing was conducted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in response to three states (Oregon, Colorado and Washington) having November ballot measures that will allow voters to approve cannabis for recreational use (all three states have long since legalized medical marijuana).
 
The panel put forth the argument that the prime rationale for prohibition was that the black market necessarily creates higher prices for users because of the risks involved in the manufacturing and distribution of illegal drugs for growers and dealers. 
 
The panel further suggested Colorado could become a major distribution point for exporting marijuana (like it isn’t already?) because, if passed, their new law would permit Rocky Mountain residents to obtain a license to cultivate. That rhetoric borders on the paranoid, as if everyone who grows in Colorado is automatically going to turn into the fictional dope-dealing mastermind Walt White of Breaking Bad and start shipping pot from coast to coast. 
 
One of the AEI panelists and co-author of the aforementioned Marijuana Legalization book, Professor Jonathan Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon, predicted that the prices for pot in New York state (some of the priciest cannabis in the nation) would drop to an astonishing one quarter of their current black-market rates – meaning a quarter-ounce of premium indoor bud could go for as little as $25 to $30.   
 
Another Marijuana Legalization co-author, UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman, advocates that the feds pressure states after they've legalized pot to impose strict regulations in order to curb interstate exporting – and we've all seen how well federal intervention with state legal medical marijuana laws has worked out.
 
And potentially running contrary to the AEI panel’s projections, states with legal medical pot have actually shown a decrease in recreational usage among young people, so the panel's concerns that usage will drastically increase may be unfounded.
 
Not that we’re suggesting anything is wrong with more widespread acceptance and use of marijuana for all purposes, but it’s critical to keep legalization efforts in their proper context and not give in to questionable speculation that potentially leans towards a negative depiction of cannabis. 
 
Bottom line, marijuana legalization would not only be a good thing – it’s the right thing to do after 75 years of prohibition insanity.
 
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