Are lower penalties a green light for drug users?
It is probable that DAWN reporters have become more thorough over the years and that the police have become more active in the drug arena during the first half of the 1980's. If this is in fact the case, both sets of statistics would suggest that marijuana use has declined while the use of other illegal drugs, for which possession is penalized as heavily as ever, has risen substantially--although not quite so much as the statistics imply. In sum, the two best statistical indicators of drug use in California show that lowering penalties for marijuana possession did not cause a rise in the use of that drug. On the contrary, these indicators point to a stable situation regarding marijuana use in the decade after the implementation of the Moscone Act, while the use of other illegal drugs soared.
Mandel
J
J
Youth Environment Study (YES), San Francisco, California 94117.
D006801:Humans; D011678:Punishment; D012926:Social Control, Formal; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders