Bruce Gorton | 2014-04-14 08:37:09.0
Medical marijuana. File photo.
Image by: RICK WILKING / REUTERS
Medical marijuana laws appear to reduce murder and assault rates according to a study.
The US based study, published in the online journal PloS One, looked at state panel data to analyse the association between state medical marijuana laws and ‘type one’ offences collected by the FBI.
Type one offences are the following: criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson.
“Some have argued medical marijuana legalisation poses a threat to public health and safety, perhaps also affecting crime rates,” the researchers wrote.
Twenty states have passed laws legalising medical marijuana, and recreational use is now legal in Colorado and Washington, meaning that the researchers now had the chance to see what effect those laws actually had.
With the exception of forcible rape, every one of the type one crimes dropped in all of the states that legalised medical marijuana.
Further, what the researchers found was that in the states with medical marijuana laws, the rates of homicide, robbery, and aggravated assault dropped faster than in states where it was still illegal.
The researchers figure this might be because marijuana smokers are lighting up rather than drinking booze – a substance with long, storied links to violence.
The researchers caution that their research is based on unconditional averages, so other factors may be in play but so far as they can see, “these laws do not appear to have any negative (i.e., crime exacerbating) impact on officially reported criminality during the years in which the laws are in effect, at least when it comes to the types of offending explored here.”
Medical marijuana laws linked to lower murder, assault rates
No comments:
Post a Comment