Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/320591 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Illicit Economies and Development (JIED) [ISSN:] 2516-7227 [Volume:] 1 [Issue:] 3 [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 272-278
Publisher: 
LSE Press, London
Abstract: 
"Legalisation" does not specify a policy. Cannabis could be made available for use by adults under a wide variety of conditions: cheap or expensive, offered by for-profit enterprises, by not-for-profits (including consumer co-operatives), as a state monopoly (for production or sales or both), or even on a "grow-your-own" basis. It could be cheap (as it would be in a free market) or expensive (due to taxes or minimum pricing). Marketing efforts could be free or restrained. Users could be "nudged" toward temperate use - for example, through a system of user-set but enforceable periodic purchase limits - or left to their own devices. Policy-makers should keep in mind Pareto's Law, which applies to cannabis consumption: about four-fifths of consumption is accounted for by about one-fifth of consumers. That fact will drive the commercial strategies of for-profit producers and sellers, and should focus the attention of public agencies on the risks and harms to the heavy-using minority. Uncertainties abound, and consequently policies should be designed to allow the system to learn from experience. But it is possible to try to predict and evaluate - albeit imperfectly - the likely consequences of proposed policy changes and to use those predictions to choose systems of legal availability that would result in better, rather than worse, combinations of gain and loss from the change.
Subjects: 
cannabis legalisation
cannabis consumption
nudge strategies
drug use prevention
drug treatment
illicit drug markets
cannabis use disorder
drug law enforcement
behavioral economics
public policy
incarceration
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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