According to a new study by the Department of Justice that looks at the impact of marijuana legalization, cannabis programs do not seem to negatively affect neighboring, non-legal states.
Authors of the paper wanted to answer three questions. 1) How does legalization impact law enforcement resources in legal states? 2) How does it impact those resources in bordering, non-legal states? and 3) What does legalizing cannabis mean for drug trafficking?
They looked at statistics on drug possession and distribution arrests in a mix of legalized states and nearby ones that maintained prohibition. According to that data, “Legalizing marijuana did not have a noticeable impact on indicators in states that bordered those that legalized.”
The study’s conclusion also added that “there were no noticeable indications of an increase in arrests related to transportation or trafficking offenses in states along the northern or southern borders.”
