Legal Marijuana Expands As Hard Crime Drops

The claim crime will increase when you legalize weed was a major talking point, but it seems it doesn’t have the data to back it

Over 50% of the country has access to legal marijuana now. Ohio and Delaware will start selling from state licensed dispensaries this year.  Even Florida, the largest nanny state, is voting for full recreational cannabis sales and has 66% public approval.  But what about the claim allowing access to marijuana will increase crime?  Well, data shows legal marijuana expands as hard crime drops.

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Data released in June 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) show violent crime from January to March dropped 15.2% compared to the same period in 2023, while murders fell 26.4% and reported rapes decreased by 25.7%. Aggravated assaults decreased during the period when compared to the previous year by 12.5%, according to the data. Robberies fell 17.8% and burglaries by 16.7%. Property crime decreased 15.1%,  while motor vehicle theft decreased by 17.3%. The declines in violent and property crimes were seen in every region of the US.

This follows a trend from last year with crime dropping in the United States. Which makes the marijuana increase crime an an odd talking point saying how legal marijuana will increase crime, but it has not played out. Both local and national trends show a drop and studies have said cannabis doesn’t increase crime.

“We have consistently seen that more access to legal cannabis not only does not increase crime, but it can reduce it. A study in Colorado showed an additional dispensary in a neighborhood led to a reduction of 17 crimes per month per 10,000 residents, which corresponds to roughly a 19 percent decline relative to the average crime rate over the sample period.” shared Jesse Redmond, Managing Director, Water Tower Research, a leading firm in the cannabis industry.

These numbers do not mean the cannabis industry is clean, do gooders.  California is still struggling with a robust black market hammering the legal one. California has burdened licensed companies with multiple high taxes, fees and almost zero help in reducing the black market. The Golden states weed farmers have been shipping products to New York’s mess despite it being clearly against the law.

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New York also seems to be fostering a white collar crime spree with their failed rollout of recreational marijuana.  The states abrupt changed, at the last minute, the process to license legitimate dispensaries and business in the states has created grief, lawsuits, crushed mom and pop dreams and over 1,500 healthy unlicensed, illicit dispensaries in New York City. The state is still grappling with how to fix the mess, but isn’t having much success.  As of this writing, the state has only managed to provide under 100 licensed stores who are competing with a vast number of competitors who don’t have the same tax burden.