Legalizing marijuana, like most policy interventions, has both intended and unintended  consequences. It not so much solves a problem as changes it. Prohibition generated many  arrests, disproportionately of minority youth, and large illegal incomes. Legalization leads to  promotion of a dependency-creating and harmful substance. There are many different ways in  which marijuana could be legalized. They have different consequences in terms of positive and  negative consequences. How should we choose? 

About Dr. Peter Reuter 

Dr. Peter Reuter is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Policy and in the  Department of Criminology. He was declared as one of two awardees for the 2019 Stockholm  Prize in Criminology, the leading prize in that field.  

His early research focused on the organization of illegal markets and resulted in the  publication Disorganized Crime: The Economics of the Visible Hand (MIT Press, 1983), which  won the Leslie Wilkins Award as most outstanding book of the year in criminology and criminal  justice. Much of his research has dealt with alternative approaches to controlling drug problems,  both in the United States and Western Europe. In recent years he has also been publishing on  money laundering control and on the flows of illicit funds from developing nations.  

Dr. Reuter founded and directed RAND’s Drug Policy Research Center from 1989-1993. From  2007-2011 Reuter served as the first president of the International Society for the Study of Drug  Policy. He also served as editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management from 1999 to  2004. He has chaired three panels for the National Academy of Sciences. Reuter received his  PhD in economics from Yale.