2001), growing scientific evidence of the therapeutic benefits of cannabinoids found in the marijuana plant ( Hill 2015, Koppel et al. Abbreviation: CBD, cannabidiol.Ī number of factors have driven the policy changes observed over the past several decades, including rising state budgetary costs associated with arresting and incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders ( Raphael & Stoll 2013, Reuter et al. 2015) and NCSL (2016a, b) with permission. Data from the RAND Marijuana Policy Database ( Pacula et al. State marijuana policies as of January 1, 2016. Thus, the vast majority of US states have moved away from a strict prohibition position toward marijuana well before they started considering outright legalization. However, there is tremendous overlap because some states have implemented combinations of each of these policies, as shown by the fact that the five states currently legalizing recreational marijuana use (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia) all initially decriminalized marijuana and then passed medical marijuana allowances before passing their legalization policies. As shown in Figure 1, as of January 1, 2016, 21 states 1 have decriminalized certain marijuana possession offenses ( NCSL 2016a), 26 states have legalized medical marijuana use, and another 16 states have adopted cannabidiol (CBD)-only laws ( NCSL 2016b) that protect only certain strains of marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes. Consider for example the state of marijuana policies in the United States at a single point of time. This has resulted in a spectrum of marijuana liberalization policies across the United States that is often not fully recognized or considered when conducting evaluations of recent policy changes. State decriminalization policies were first passed in the 1970s, patient medical access laws began to get adopted in the 1990s, and more recently states have been experimenting with legalization of recreational markets. Although the federal law has prohibited the use and distribution of marijuana in the United States since 1937, for the past five decades states have been experimenting with marijuana liberalization polices.
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