During an event at the American Enterprise Institute, a panel of experts offered some dire warnings about the results of marijuana legalization, now being considered by three states: Colorado, Washington and, as of last week, Oregon.
A recent piece by The Los Angeles Times described the event where Jonathan Caulkins, co-author of "Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs To Know" and a RAND academic consultant, offered a gloomy forecast for marijuana's legalization.
Caulkins said prices of marijuana could plummet following legalization making thedrug less risky to produce and sell, so Caulkins believes that outlawing the drug is important because it drives up prices and therefore curbs use. He also says that Colorado's Amendment 64 would allow residents to obtain a grower's license "fairly easily" making Colorado a good home for exporters of the drug.
So, The Huffington Post chatted with Mason Tvert, co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group behind Amendment 64 which seeks to legalize and regulate marijuana for recreational use for adults and will appear on Colorado ballots this November, and asked Tvert to discuss the issues brought up in the L.A. Times story.
"It's surprising and disappointing to hear academics make such bold claims without a shred of evidence to substantiate them," Tvert said to The Huffington Post via e-mail. "It is especially disappointing since people truly respect RAND as a research organization. Unless they retract these assertions, you will undoubtedly see our opponents citing this fanciful and baseless speculation as 'fact' in the future. Fortunately, RAND has shown a willingness to retract marijuana-related research, as they did when law enforcement complained about their research showing that medical marijuana dispensaries did not lead to increases in crime." Below are Tvert's responses to the various issues brought up by the panel.
On licensing and distribution after legalization:
Amendment 64 explicitly states that licensed marijuana cultivation facilities can only provide marijuana to licensed retail stores and product manufacturers. It is illegal to transport marijuana out of Colorado right now, and it will remain just as illegal to do so if Amendment 64 is adopted by the voters. 

On tracking the growing and selling of marijuana under Amendment 64:
Under a prohibition model, the production and distribution of marijuana is entirely uncontrolled. Authorities do not know who is growing it, where, or when, and they certainly do not know where it goes from there. Under the system proposed by Amendment 64, regulators and law enforcement officials would be directly involved in the process, ensuring it is produced and distributed in accordance with the law. The Colorado Department of Revenue is currently implementing a system of medical marijuana regulation that entails tracking all marijuana from 'seed to sale.' The same agency will oversee the regulation of non-medical marijuana if Amendment 64 is adopted, and it will in all likelihood extend that strict process to all marijuana production and sales.
On marijuana prices plummeting and use of the drug increasing due to legalization:
Despite the price of marijuana decreasing in Colorado over the past couple years, there have been no reports of prices going down in other states as a result. There is no evidence to suggest that would change if Amendment 64 is adopted. As these college professors noted, our federal government's strategy for limiting marijuana use is to keep the prices high. But this has done nothing to make marijuana less available, and it has made it more available to teens. Meanwhile, the federal government reports that the use of marijuana by high-school students in Colorado has decreased significantly since the state began regulating medical marijuana. Thisbucks the trend of increased use among students nationwide, where marijuana is entirely unregulated.
On marijuana being more widely available after legalization:
Marijuana is currently universally available, and it will remain that way regardless of whether Amendment 64 is adopted. The question is whether we would prefer marijuana be strictly controlled and sold by licensed businesses in a tightly regulated market, or whether we want to continue with the current system in which it is strictly uncontrolled and sold by criminal enterprises in the underground market. I would prefer the former, and I think Colorado voters will demonstrate this November that they do, too.
Amendment 64 does appear to be quite popular amongst Colorado voters. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll from earlier in June showed 61 percent of likely Colorado voters are in favor of legalizing marijuana.
That is the highest percentage of Colorado voter support that any marijuana legalization poll has shown to date. In December of 2011, a similar poll from Public Policy Polling showed only 49 percent in favor of general legalization of marijuana.
The marijuana legalization initiative also recently received support from both Republicans and Democrats -- in March, 56 percent of the delegates at the Denver County Republican Assembly voted to support the legislation, and in April, theColorado Democratic Party officially endorsed Amendment 64 and added a marijuana legalization plank to the current party platform.
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