Marijuana Moment
A new study on Atlanta’s move to decriminalize marijuana concludes that, contrary to warnings from some critics, the policy change in fact led to a decrease in violent crime as police turned their attention to more urgent matters.
ssrn-5165064The research looks at crime surrounding the city’s 2017 reduction of penalties around the simple possession of cannabis. Prior to the change, possession of up to an ounce of marijuana was punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,500 fine. Afterward, that fell to a maximum $75 fine civil fine, with no possibility of jail time.
While some warned that loosening penalties would lead to a rise in crime rates, researchers observed the opposite.
“Our findings suggest that decriminalization led to a reduction in violent crime,” the new report says, “likely due to police reallocating resources from marijuana enforcement to violent crime prevention.”
To arrive at that conclusion, authors examined agency-level crime data from 2015 through 2018 from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports, which included information from nearly all Georgia cities with populations over 25,000. They then compared crime rates between Atlanta and other control cities that did not decriminalize marijuana.
Relative to those control cities, the “estimated effect” of decriminalization in Atlanta was “about 20 fewer violent crimes per 100,000 people per month,” the analysis found. That’s a 19.7 percent reduction from the pre-decriminalization average.
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Atlanta’s Decriminalization Of Marijuana ‘Led To A Reduction In Violent Crime,’ New Research Shows
