Cover: Developing Public Health Regulations for Marijuana

Developing Public Health Regulations for Marijuana

Lessons from Alcohol and Tobacco

Published in: American Journal of Public Health, v. 104, no. 6, June 2014, p. 1021-1028

Posted on RAND.org on May 20, 2014

by Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Beau Kilmer, Alexander C. Wagenaar, Frank J. Chaloupka, Jonathan P. Caulkins

Until November 2012, no modern jurisdiction had removed the prohibition on the commercial production, distribution, and sale of marijuana for nonmedical purposes—not even the Netherlands. Government agencies in Colorado and Washington are now charged with granting production and processing licenses and developing regulations for legal marijuana, and other states and countries may follow. Our goal is not to address whether marijuana legalization is a good or bad idea but, rather, to help policymakers understand the decisions they face and some lessons learned from research on public health approaches to regulating alcohol and tobacco over the past century.

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