The Food & Drug Administration (FDA), as part of the federal government, regulates and controls the medicine markets throughout the United States. Consumers are not able to buy whatever they want, unless it is approved and deemed legal and safe by the FDA, regardless of the benefits to consumers’ health. Therefore, social problems happen when markets are not allowed to function freely. Consumers will find work-arounds in the system to get the medicine, or drugs, which they desire, regardless of the consequences, which then leads to increases in crime rates throughout the country. This system of both regulated and unregulated markets for medicine, or drugs, is a major societal issue existing today. The government has a history of not approving medications that have been developed to cure certain diseases. A contentious debate around this practice claims that the government often refusing the approve, or legalize, some medications so that they do not lose money by curing diseases, instead of just treating them. An example of this is marijuana, a natural medicine that has some proven results, but remains banned at a federal level throughout the United States. Some states have individually lifted bans on marijuana, some for medicinal purposes, and others for both medicinal and recreational use.
Marijuana, or cannabis, is the dried leaves, flowers, and stems of the hemp plant. This plant has been proven to provide several health benefits for people, while being 100% natural. These health benefits have been proven within studies to help treat some of the following conditions: chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, nausea, weight-loss, glaucoma, and PTSD (Grinspoon, 2018). As a result of these studies, doctors’ stances on the uses of medical marijuana for patient treatments have been changing. According to Dr. David Casarett, a palliative care specialist, “…I really thought medical marijuana as a joke, I’ve come to realize there really are medical benefits to medical marijuana...It’s a treatment that they’ve [patients] come to rely on (National Public Radio, 2015).”
Nixon’s war on drugs in the 1970s and the passage of the Controlled Substances Act made marijuana illegal across the nation at the federal level. This act placed marijuana, or cannabis, as a Schedule 1 substance, alongside drugs like heroin and LSD. There was no scientific, medical, or legal reasoning for this placement, it was more to do with Nixon’s association of marijuana with its counterculture (Martin, 2016). Recently, states have begun to legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational uses disregarding the Nixon-era regulation, since there hasn’t been concrete proof showing harmful effects.
However, even with more states legalizing use marijuana is still not easily accessible to those in need for medical use since it’s use is strictly regulated by government regulations. As shown in the map below, only a handful of states have passed legislation deeming use legal for medical or recreational use.
In addition to the states that have legalized the use of marijuana for medical, or recreational uses, many states have taken the initiative to decriminalize the substance instead. Currently, twenty-two states have legislated that small amounts of marijuana, generally small, personal-consumption amounts, are considered local infractions, instead of a state crime. This lessen the punishment and avoids the possibility of jail time (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2018).
As a consequence of this market being so tightly regulated, it creates a social problem of accessing marijuana legally and thus creates a thriving black market for the substance. Due to current regulations, legal supplies of marijuana are controlled and is not available equally to everyone, while the demand for marijuana is increasing. As a result, marijuana is primarily still being acquired through illegal black markets, which then lessens the demand for marijuana supplied through legal markets to fall.
Through studies in crime rates, states that have legalized marijuana have been found to have decreases in their crime rates. In a 2014 study, after the legalization of marijuana the homicide and assault rates fell by approximately 2.4% for each year the law was in effect (Morris, 2018). Morris also found that legalization of medical marijuana appears to reduce the number of alcohol-related driving incidents (2018).
Marijuana legalization can also become a great income generating industry for states who legalize it both for medical and recreational use. The state of Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational use, reported tax revenue from the sale of marijuana for the 2017 tax year at $247,368,473. Colorado has used this additional income source to fund capital projects throughout the state, such as building new public schools, as well as dedicating a large portion to other public-school funds (Chevalier, 2018). The introduction of recreational marijuana has also created additional jobs within the state of Colorado. The Governor’s Office reported as of July that there were approximately 40,334 people working within the marijuana industry within the state (Chevalier, 2018).
If marijuana was legalized at the national level, the government would likely benefit greatly. If marijuana was introduced into the free market and the stigma associated with the drug was removed, demand within the market would increase, and producers would be able to grow more and increase supply as well. With illegal drug production, the costs associated with production are extremely high, thus creating a high price for the product as well. If marijuana was legalized then the price would be predicted to fall since the costs of production would decrease (Hunt & Pacula, 2017).
In Colorado, when only medical marijuana was sold the price was $7.98 per gram, but once recreational marijuana became legal the price fell to $7.19 per gram. Although as demand grew after implementation, Colorado’s supply remaining the same and caused a shortage in the market, which then caused the costs to increase to $10.20 per gram (Hunt & Pacula, 2017). The rise in prices in the legal market for drugs poses a risk that consumers might turn to the black market, or illegal markets, to purchase the drugs at a potentially lower price, thus circumventing the government regulations.
Risks will still exist with the introduction of market mechanisms of supply and demand whenever there are situations dealing with ethical issues. There are currently still many states that have not legalized marijuana, or even decriminalized it. One risk that can be posed with the legalization is not being able to control the amount of consumption. An additional risk would be the need to create a uniform set of consumption and sales laws across the nation to make sure only the correct consumers can purchase marijuana. Another potential risk would be if suppliers of legal marijuana were unable to meet the new levels of demand due to national legalization, which would cause consumers to still utilize black market options to get their product.
Until marijuana has been legalized throughout the nation, it will remain a controversial topic, with almost equal people lobbying for the legalization and against the legalization of the drug. Eventually the benefits of legalizing marijuana, such as health benefits, and increased tax revenues, and opening it up to a free market should become clearer. It has been a proven positive result for states, such as Colorado, where they’ve had legalized medical and recreation forms of the drug for a few years now. In allowing the product into the free market, this should create an increase in demand and increase the supply to consumers, which in turn would decrease the cost to consumers and slowly cripple the existing black markets for marijuana. The legalization would hopefully change how consumers view marijuana and marijuana-users. This would also allow states and the federal government to increase their revenues through taxes and to decrease expenses associated with pursuing illegal marijuana growers and dealers and those expenses associated with jailing those convicted on marijuana-related crimes.
References
Chevalier, Z. (2018, August 1). Recreational Marijuana May Be Big Business for States. Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2018-08-01/the-legalization-of-recreational-marijuana-an-economic-opportunity-for-states
Grinspoon, P. (2018, January 09). Medical marijuana. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/medical-marijuana-2018011513085
Hunt, P., & Pacula, R. L. (2017). Early Impacts of Marijuana Legalization: An Evaluation of Prices in Colorado and Washington. The journal of primary prevention, 38(3), 221-248.
Martin, S. C. (2016, April 20). Marijuana in the United States: How Attitudes Have Changed. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from http://time.com/4298038/marijuana-history-in-america/
Morris, J. (2018, September). Does Legalizing Marijuana Reduce Crime? Retrieved from https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/does-legalizing-marijuana-reduce-crime.pdf
National Conference of State Legislatures. (2018, December 14). Marijuana Overview. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from http://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/marijuana-overview.aspx
National Public Radio. (2015, July 14). When Weed Is The Cure: A Doctor's Case for Medical Marijuana. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/14/422876973/when-weed-is-the-cure-a-doctors-case-for-medical-marijuana