Cannabis Legalization and Crime: Cannabis as a Basis for Law Enforcement Stops and Searches

• In Event: What Happens After Legalization?: The Role of Cannabis Policy in Markets, Policing, Youth, and Patient Health

Abstract

There has been much interest – and controversy – over the impact of adult-use cannabis legalization on crime.  While opponents of adult-use cannabis legalization argue that increased use of intoxicating substances following legalization may lead to an increase in crime, proponents argue that the creation of a legal market may reduce crime associated with the presence of an illegal market and that law enforcement resources previously spent enforcing prohibition can be deployed to investigate more serious crimes.  The research on this issue is mixed (see, e.g., Lu et al. 2021, Dragone et al. 2018, Thacker et al. 2021, Freishler et al. 2017) and may depend on the specific jurisdictions and time periods being studied. 

However, this debate so far has not considered a critical role that illegal cannabis can play in policing:  namely, apparent cannabis possession/use (especially the smell of cannabis) can provide law enforcement with reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred, allowing them to stop, question, and (potentially) frisk individuals. Stop, question, and frisk (SQF) is a commonly used law enforcement tool that may allow police to not only investigate the criminal activity serving as the basis for the stop (e.g., cannabis use), but also other criminal activity that they think might be occurring but do not have enough information about to form a reasonable suspicion (e.g., illegal firearm possession) (Geller and Fagan 2010).  There is currently an open legal debate about whether federal prohibition can serve as a basis for a search by state/local law enforcement officers after state legalization (Kerr 2018; Perez 2026).  Twelve of 25 states (as of 2023) that had legalized adult-use cannabis have provisions in their laws explicitly stating that law enforcement cannot use cannabis possession/use as a basis for detention and search.  A clearer understanding of whether and how cannabis legalization has impacted law enforcement stops/searches (and consequently crime rates) would help inform important policy discussions related to both cannabis legalization and law enforcement activities.

In this paper, I explore the impact of cannabis legalization on law enforcement stops and searches, and consequently crime rates.  I begin with a descriptive analysis of the direct impact of adult use cannabis legalization in general and state laws explicitly providing cannabis cannot serve as a basis for detention and search after legalization on police use of stops in both the pedestrian and automotive contexts, using an originally collected dataset that compiles administrative data on law enforcement stop activity in the largest US cities.  I then use a quasi-experimental design to analyze the impact of state law provisions preventing cannabis from serving as the basis for a detention and search on urban arrest rates post-legalization, using data from the Uniform Crime Reports and the National Incident-Based Reporting System.  This research provides a more nuanced picture of the mechanisms through which adult-use cannabis legalization impacts public safety outcomes and the role of cannabis prohibition as a tool for law enforcement, therefore assisting policymakers in better managing important tradeoffs between public safety and individual rights.

Author

• Anne Elizabeth Boustead, University of Arizona
  Presenting Author