Letter to the Editor: The Blunt Truth About States Subsidizing Pot
Steven Malanga is right to criticize state and local governments for using taxpayer dollars to subsidize legal cannabis retailers to help them compete with the underground cannabis trade (“It’s High Times for State-Subsidized Pot Businesses,” Cross Country, May 31). But his cannabaphobia shows. For someone who champions limited government, free markets and the unintended consequences of regulation, Mr. Malagana fails to suggest removing the regulatory barriers that stunt cannabis-industry growth and keep prices high, fueling a robust, less safe underground market. Governments instead choose costly subsidies to mask the effects of their own regulations.
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Recent research also offers clearer insight than the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, whose reliance on voluntary self-reporting has faced criticism for inaccuracy. In 2018 Canada became the first G‑7 country to legalize recreational cannabis. A McMaster University study tracking 1,428 adults in Hamilton, Ontario, from 2018 to 2023 found that cannabis use frequency rose modestly post-legalization while misuse declined modestly. Frequent prelegalization users reduced their consumption, misuse fell among prior users and increases among new users were expected given their baseline.
In that light Mr. Malanga’s criticism misses the mark: It’s the regulations—not legalization—that fuel the problems he condemns.
