Marijuana legalization increases while serious crime declines

The claim that crime will increase with the legalization of marijuana has been a major topic of discussion, but there seems to be no data to support this.

Over 50% of the country now has access to legal marijuana. Ohio and Delaware will begin selling it in state-licensed dispensaries this year. Even Florida, the biggest nanny state, votes to allow unrestricted recreational cannabis sales, with 66% approval of the population. But what about the claim that marijuana access will increase crime? Well, the data shows that marijuana legalization is increasing while hard crime is decreasing.

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Data released by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in June 2024 shows that violent crime fell 15.2% from January to March compared to the same period in 2023, while murders fell 26.4% and reported rapes fell 25.7%. According to the data, aggravated assaults fell 12.5% ​​during the same period compared to the previous year. Robberies fell 17.8% and burglaries fell 16.7%. Property crime fell 15.1%, while auto theft fell 17.3%. The decline in violent and property crimes was seen in all regions of the U.S.

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This follows a trend from last year where crime in the United States was decreasing. This makes the increasing crime caused by marijuana a curious point of discussion, as claims are made that legal marijuana will increase crime, but that has not proven to be true. Both local and national trends show a decrease and studies have shown that cannabis does not increase crime.

“We have seen time and time again that increased access to legal cannabis not only does not increase crime, but can actually decrease it. A study in Colorado showed that adding an additional dispensary to a neighborhood resulted in a reduction of 17 crimes per month per 10,000 residents, a decrease of about 19 percent compared to the average crime rate during the study period,” said Jesse Redmond, CEO of Water Tower Research, a leading firm in the cannabis industry.

These numbers don't mean the cannabis industry is clean, their benefactor. California still struggles with a strong black market that dwarfs the legal market. California has burdened licensed businesses with numerous high taxes and fees and provides virtually no help in curbing the black market. The Golden States' marijuana growers have been shipping their products into the chaos of New York, even though it is clearly against the law.

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New York also appears to be facilitating a wave of white collar crime with the failed launch of recreational marijuana. States made an abrupt last-minute change to the process for licensing legal dispensaries and stores in the states, resulting in heartache, lawsuits, shattered dreams of small family businesses, and over 1,500 healthy, unlicensed, illegal dispensaries in New York City. The state is still struggling to clean up the mess, but is not having much success. At the time of this writing, the state has only established fewer than 100 licensed stores, competing with a large number of competitors who do not have the same tax burden.