Reason -Ruibin Lu, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Stockton University, and nine collaborators compared monthly crime rates in Colorado and Washington to monthly crime rates in "the 21 states that have not legalized marijuana use for recreational or medical purposes on a large scale." Based on FBI data for 1999 through 2016, they considered what happened after legalization was approved in 2012 and after state-licensed sales to recreational consumers began in 2014. "In general," they report, "the results suggest that marijuana policies and laws have had little effect on crime in Colorado or Washington State."
While both states saw statistically significant increases in property crime immediately after legalization, those changes were short-lived. Compared to the control states, violent crime rose slightly in Colorado and Washington after legalization, but the differences were not statistically significant. After retail sales began, violent crime rates remained essentially the same in both states.
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