Marijuana has been legal – sort of – for a year now, and the results have been predictable. People who like smoking weed are still smoking weed. We have increased tax revenue, but also increased social costs. Has it been worth it? Will it be worth it in the future? Can we tip the cost/benefit scales to make Nevada a better place for families and non-vice industries we want to attract?

The benefit has been more money for our local communities and schools – that cannot be denied. $56 million ain’t nuthin’, as they say. But it’s also hardly any sort of magic wand, especially spread out over the whole state. Even if every dollar went to schools, that covers the construction (not staffing) costs for just two-thirds of a single Washoe County middle school.

And every dollar isn’t going to schools. So far, only $12 million of that is going to education, with $34 million going into the rainy day account and the rest going to local governments. I think that was a wise move when no one could accurately predict what sort of revenue we’d get from legal marijuana, and I still think we shouldn’t let ourselves get hooked on a drug as an indispensable part of any budget, much less the symbolic problem of “needing” drugs to pay for education. And I still fear that the novelty has yet to wear off – as other states continue to legalize the stuff, fewer and fewer people will need to buy it here. California, where marijuana became legal six months after it did here, has only seen about 1/3 of predicted tax revenue from marijuana.

The other touted benefit – eliminating the black market – hasn’t happened at all. If anything, it’s increased and is thriving here, in California, and in other states where the drug is legalized. If you tax the bejezus out of something that’s relatively easy to produce on one’s own, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Similar high tax schemes have fueled a massive black market in cigarettes. And the marijuana black market is lucrative enough for people to commit violence and even murders over it.

And then there are the other costs. Marijuana DUIs are up significantly (here and elsewhere), which along with black market activity, tracks with my own anecdotal experiences as a prosecutor since legalization. Emergency room visits related to marijuana are also up. There is an increase in the number of children disciplined in our schools for drug-related infractions. And we are having to spend more tax dollars just on more tax and business regulators to keep up with the industry, which further erodes the benefit of the revenue in the first place. Focus on any medicinal benefits has all but disappeared as the need for a separate “prescription” has significantly lessened, while federal law still functionally prohibits any legitimate pharmaceutical research.

I also wonder if we won’t see the sort of cultural and medical trajectory with marijuana that tobacco has experienced. Billboards are popping up all over Reno, telling folks to “mind their marijuana smoke, because other people might,” and reminding them that “legal doesn’t mean safe.” Without the subculture mystique, the bloom could fall off of the bud awfully quickly.

These results were all predictable, which is why I opposed legalization even though I frankly don’t care that much about pot one way or the other. But we all know that genie isn’t going back in the bottle, though – so how can we make things better? 

The answer is to stop treating marijuana like it’s something special, either especially good or especially bad. There will always be unique regulations with a product people consume which can send them to the emergency room if they take too much of it – that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t even have a problem with strict zoning rules regarding dispensary and advertising locations.

But there’s no reason marijuana should be taxed at a different rate than any other legal product. (High tax rates do not always correlate with high tax revenue, as lower taxes reduce the incentive to avoid the taxes altogether, as in the thriving black market for weed.) There’s no reason people shouldn’t be able to grow their own, no matter how close to a dispensary they live. (How ridiculous would it be if I couldn’t grow my own tomatoes or carrots because a Raley’s is down the street from me?) Market forces – not the government – should determine how many dispensaries are “allowed” to operate in any given community. (The fact that self-grows are illegal within 25 miles of a licensed dispensary, and those licenses are limited in number and difficult to get, goes to show that the legalization effort was always more about hooking up and protecting the wealth of a few rich people rather than truly making it “legal.”) Reasonable tax rates will do more to undercut the black market than all the DEA helicopters in the world.

Most importantly, tax revenue from marijuana should not be specifically earmarked for anything, much less education. That money should go into the general fund like anything else. The absurdity of telling our kids that marijuana is bad while they see their teachers begging for more drug money speaks for itself. And the twin goals of “sin” taxes – discouraging use while raising revenue – are in the end mutually incompatible. Becoming addicted to marijuana money will leave us worse off when that cultural bottom falls out a la tobacco.

In the meantime, we should allow public smoking lounges to take full advantage of Nevada’s unique tourism culture. It also gives locals a place to smoke that isn’t where their kids live, or in their car, or in public somewhere. (The latter two are already illegal, but still happen all the time.)

When it comes to dealing with a dangerous product, too much regulation can be just as harmful – if not more – as not enough, and that’s the situation Nevada finds itself in today with respect to marijuana. If we’re going to legalize it, then legalize it. Otherwise we will continue to see all of the inevitable social costs (and even exacerbate them) while limiting the benefits we were promised.

Orrin Johnson has been writing and commenting on Nevada and national politics since 2007. He started with an independent blog, First Principles, and was a regular columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from 2015-2016. By day, he is a deputy district attorney for Carson City. His opinions here are his own. Follow him on Twitter @orrinjohnson, or contact him at [email protected].