I was cheered to see The Times strike a more cautious note on the legalization of marijuana. The editorial board correctly states that the end of prohibition has brought myriad social problems, including addiction, medical issues and harms to children.
Still, I can offer only two cheers for these admissions. As I have argued in The Times and elsewhere, the harms of marijuana legalization are intrinsic to the combination of addiction and the profit motive. Alcohol and tobacco — which each cause more deaths per year than all illegal drugs combined — are not examples to be emulated.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The New York Times (paywall)
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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