COOPER: Would legalizing marijuana increase violence?
JEFFREY MIRON, SENIOR ECONOMICS LECTURER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Absolutely not. There's not a shred of evidence or any good reason to think that legalizing marijuana would increase violence. Just the opposite.
Most of the violence we associate with marijuana is because, when you force a trade underground, people in that trade resolve their disputes with guns rather than with lawyers and advertising, the things that people do in legal industries. So it's prohibition that's creating the violence, not marijuana creating the violence. It's just completely preposterous to suggest that marijuana use causes violence.
[...] Well, the mere fact that these medical marijuana dispensaries may be dispensing widely to people who are using for reasons other than medicinal is undoubtedly valid. But if there's been an increase in use, then where's the surge in violence? California is just as peaceful and just as normal a place as it's been for a long time, despite this alleged surge in use from the medicinal marijuana. So then, doesn't support the claims being made by the prohibitionist in any way, shape or form.
