How Increased Marijuana Use Impacts Your Pocketbook

When people talk about the costs of marijuana, it is almost always couched in terms of directly attributable costs.  But we should not forget the impact dramatically increased marijuana use has on medical costs and insurance rates (among a host of other societal costs). Here is a quote from my book addressing the impact of increased marijuana use treatment admissions, poison control calls, and hospitalizations,

“With all of this, it is no surprise that Colorado averages well over six thousand treatment admissions into drug treatment programs for marijuana each year, more than for methamphetamine, and more than twice as many as the treatment admissions for heroin. In 2007, 22 percent of people in all drug treatment in Colorado reported using marijuana heavily. With steadily increasing rates, by 2014, that number had jumped to 36 percent reporting heavy marijuana use. For anyone concerned about the actual cost of marijuana legalization, it would be pure nonsense to think these increased poison control calls, hospitalizations, and drug treatment admissions have no impact on public expenditures, medical costs, and insurance rates. In fact, one Colorado hospital alone experienced $210 million in uncollected payments from marijuana-related admissions, and states that legalized marijuana saw a 10 percent increase in automobile insurance premiums the year of legalization and a 16 percent increase the year after legalization.”[1]

[1] Brian Surber, Injustice for All: The (Familiar) Fallacies of Criminal Justice Reform,(True Blue Publishing, LLC 2021), p. 105.