A very controversial and contention issue to be sure; if America were to decriminalize marijuana usage, would people smoke more, would we see greater rates of addiction, and other harms, or would we just benefit from a great reduction in law enforcement costs, criminal profiteering and other punitive sanctions?

These were the questions that researchers from the RAND Drug Policy Research Center wanted to answer, and to do so they looked primarily at the Dutch experiment with the decriminalization and the defacto legalization of marijuana, and have extrapolated these effects to speculate on the American situation.

The study authors have characterized the Amsterdam marijuana policy experiment into primarily two phases. The first phase was simply a decriminalization of the sale and possessions of marijuana, and the second phase essentially legalized the sale, and allowed for coffee shops to sell the drug openly and without sanction within the city of Amsterdam.

Looking at marijuana usage rates, they state that a decriminalization of the plant, and allowing people to grow their own and smoke as they wish without providing legal venues for the sale of marijuana seems to have no effect whatsoever on increasing the rates of drug use.

Legalization and sale in coffee shops has resulted in a dramatic increase in marijuana usage, and the study authors speculate that if such a policy were adopted in America, with its history of commercialization, promotion and free speech, this increasant effect could well be amplified.

But what about the gateway theory?

One of the real obstacles to marijuana decriminalization is the fear that marijuana tends to increase the chances of experimentation with other harder drugs, and thus if we increases the rates of marijuana use, we may increase our societal problems with harder and more destructive drugs.

Again, looking at the Dutch model of decriminalization and even legalization, it doesn’t appear that this is so, and in fact, although legalization has increased the rates of marijuana use, it seems to have dampened somewhat the association between marijuana use and use of harder drugs.

Virtually all users of harder drugs have smoked marijuana, but most marijuana users do not go on to use harder drugs, so is there a gateway risk?

Well in the Dutch experiment, what seems to have happened is that by legalizing the sale of marijuana, officials have greatly reduced the impact of the street level dealers. The overwhelming majority of Amsterdam marijuana users buy their drug from coffee shops in a legal manner, and these coffee shops almost universally do not sell harder drugs. The average marijuana smoker just doesn’t seem to have the same access to different and harder drugs. American marijuana smokers in contrast do buy their drugs from street dealers, and these dealers are in many cases also offering harder drugs of abuse.

So legalization of sale, although it has increased marijuana usage, seems to have decreased problematic usage of harder drugs.

So what should America do?

It seems pretty clear that decriminalization offers almost all benefits with essentially only very minimal risks. And when these minimal risks are compared in severity to the harms enacted through the punitive enforcement of marijuana drug laws, the benefits of decriminalization become more persuasive.

So, let's decriminalize it. The Dutch experiment shows that making it completely legal does cause some problematic increases in usage, and America may not want to follow down this policy road; but allowing people to grow a small amount for personal consumption seems to offer the best overall solution to everyone involved.

So, researchers seem to back decriminalization, public option concurs…government, what's the hold up?

Marijuana is not good for you. It does cause addiction, it does lessen cognitive abilities, and it would be great if people would just stop using it and all other drugs of abuse; but since that's not likely to happen, and we obviously have no real control over its illegal distribution and sale, we should take steps to reduce the harms of a punitive anti marijuana policy.