Neal Milner: How Both Sides In Marijuana Debate Blew Smoke Up Our Okole

Last session, the Hawaii Legislature decided not to legalize recreational marijuana. Here are five important facts to keep in mind.

First, research assessing the effects of legalization is, to put it politely, inconclusive, and, to put it more frankly, close to totally useless.

Second, at best the research shows that the consequences are nowhere near what either advocates or opponents claim.

Third, nevertheless, in recent Hawaii legislative testimony about legalization, the advocates on both sides acted as if the research supporting their positions was gold standard.

Fourth, that’s more than just bad marijuana policymaking. It’s an all-too-common way that beliefs and mythologies get bandied about and suddenly get transformed into unadorned “real” facts that then influence legislation. Legislative alchemy, turning fluff to gold.

Fifth, there are ways to be more careful and less demagogic about evidence. We’ll look at what the RAND Corporation, the gold standard of policy assessing, suggests.

Inconclusive Evidence

The research tells us almost nothing definitive about the effects of legalizing marijuana. 

The only impact that shows up consistently is that states that legalize recreational marijuana and tax it increase their revenues. The more you tax, the more revenue you get. Duh.

It’s a slippery, twisty downhill slope after that.

Don’t take my word for it.  Check out these large-scale, meta-analyses of all these studies. As one of these studies understatedly put it, this evidence is far from the claims made by either legalization advocates or its opponents.

Does the lack of consistent findings lead to careful claims and modest proposals? Well, no.

The anti campaign led by Oahu prosecutor Steve Alm was so public, well-organized and effective that it deserves special attention.

Alm’s efforts began well before this year’s Legislature took up the issue. Among other activities, he organized large public forums where a number of people both from Hawaii and elsewhere presented their anti-marijuana case.

I went to one at a Waikiki hotel. It was far from a pep rally against reefer madness. A lot of smart people presented their case and invited discussion. All the cases, of course, were anti-legalization.

In my old life, I also went to many conferences where researchers presented their findings.

Big difference from the Alm meetings. At my former-life conferences, there were commentators for every presentation. Their job was to carefully examine the data, try to clarify the findings and methods, and if necessary, to challenge them. Dispassion, examining from a distance, objectivity, purposeful doubt.

The Alm forum was certainly not meant to be objective. It was to sell an idea. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. It is flawed, though, to believe the evidence is right on, solid as a rock and definitive, which is the position Alm and his supporters took in their testimony. 

Here is a summary of Alm’s testimony: Legalization will increase the black market; more children will get access to marijuana, and there are no effective ways to keep this from happening; marijuana harms the brain; there will be more auto fatalities, more hospital admissions; bad economic impacts.

All presented as irrevocable facts.

And here is a summary of a pro-legalization advocate. It has the same drawbacks:

There is some truth to all of these claims in the sense that some study somewhere has shown this. But, as the research indicates, other studies have not.

A Bigger Problem and a Better Way

OK, I am not grading graduate seminar papers here. We have to be realistic about the kinds of information the Legislature has at its disposal. As the RAND Corporation says in its report assessing the effect of gun control laws — which, by the way prove to be inconclusive for the same reasons as the marijuana legislation — legislators often have to act without having this kind of information available. 

Something comes up, especially a crisis, and it’s necessary to act more or less by the seat of their pants. 

Still, it’s too tempting to make laws supported by inconclusive facts about how the laws might work because that’s what you believe in your heart.

It is too easy to fall into a trap that Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiaridi candidly described regarding his anti-marijuana testimony:

“I certainly know what I believe in,” he said about his opposition to legalization, “and I certainly know the strength of my convictions. This is not good.”

A shared set of facts, non-partisan and impartial — wow, what a heavy lift.

Of course, it is good to have the courage of your convictions. If you are making laws, however, it’s even better to have convictions supported by evidence. And sometimes convictions blind a person to the evidence. Dispassion and the ability to be skeptical about your convictions, that’s also a part of good governing.

The RAND Corp.’s mission can be a guide to better policymaking: “By highlighting where scientific evidence is accumulating,” the mission statement says, “we hope to build consensus around a shared set of facts that have been established through a transparent, nonpartisan and impartial review process.”

A shared set of facts, non-partisan and impartial — wow, what a heavy lift. Those objectives lie somewhere between an aspiration and a pipedream.

Still, it’s a set of instructions that’s too valuable to dismiss. 

If nothing else, RAND reminds us that policymaking is not just about passionate advocacy. It is far better to have the facts on your side than to rely on the courage of your conviction. 

Making policy needs to include a sophisticated, rigorous and skeptical examination of the evidence on all sides and a strong dose of modest self-awareness of the policymaker’s own biases.

Overselling limited evidence. Generating more heat than light. Overall grade for the quality of the marijuana testimony is D-. And that’s a terrible way to run a railroad.

Wait! That is the way we run a railroad here in Honolulu.