Marijuana and Crime Rates

When it comes to drugs and crime rates there is generally a strong correlation. Now I haven’t determined whether or not I’m going to be treating Marijuana like a drug or a plant but it’s most often these days treated as a drug in the United States. Because marijuana is most often treated as a drug these days we are going to lump this in with the other one, crime. While alcohol can cause “blackouts”, fits of sorrow, rage attacks, anxiety, and depression, marijuana only sometimes causes anxiety and panic at which point most would say the benefit outweighs the consequence; therefore, because Marijuana does not cause these additional negative emotional effects it does not correlate to increased use of crime.

I would say that in general, if we got the whole world stoned at the same time that crime rates would reach an all-time low, whereas if we got the whole world drunk at the same time that crime rates would skyrocket. Despite this very accurate sounding opinion many people still strongly associate marijuana use with crime, probably because so many criminals are caught with marijuana… however it is likely not the marijuana they are doing when committing the crimes. So I guess that leaves this up for you to decide… does marijuana correlate with high crime rates, no crime rates, or low crime rates?