\n\n“Marijuana is nowhere as dangerous as alcohol. You can quite literally drink yourself to death; the same doesn\u2019t apply to marijuana. So it\u2019s almost certain that legalizing marijuana the same way won\u2019t lead to all the same bad outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, there are some risks. A thorough review of the research<\/a>, by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine<\/a>, found that marijuana poses a variety of possible downsides, which can include a higher risk of respiratory problems (if smoked), an increased risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses, an increased likelihood of car crashes, a general decrease in social achievement, and, potentially, some harm to fetuses in the womb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s also the real risk of addiction and overuse<\/a>. As Stanford\u2019s Keith Humphreys put it to the Atlantic<\/a>, \u201cIn large national surveys, about one in 10 people who smoke [marijuana] say they have a lot of problems. They say things like, \u2018I have trouble quitting. I think a lot about quitting and I can\u2019t do it. I smoked more than I intended to. I neglect responsibilities.\u2019 \u2026 People will say, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s just you fuddy-duddy doctors.\u2019 Actually, no. It\u2019s millions of people who use the drug who say that it causes problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of that is to make the argument for prohibition, which produces its own problems”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “An obvious question is: If the standard commercial model works for alcohol, why can\u2019t it work for a newly legal drug like cannabis, too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this model doesn\u2019t<\/em> work well for alcohol. The nation\u2019s second-most popular drug (after caffeine<\/a>) is linked to nearly 100,000 deaths<\/a> a year in the US \u2014 about the same as all overdose deaths<\/a>, and more than the combined death tolls of car crashes<\/a> and murders<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A different model could help. Previous research<\/a>, for example, found that states that maintained a government-operated monopoly for alcohol kept prices higher, reduced access to youth, and cut overall levels of use”<\/p>\n\n\n\n