The New Jersey State Policy Lab at Rutgers University recently released what it calls “a first-of-its-kind report examining health, education, and law enforcement factors related to marijuana usage.”
The resulting timely work, “Cannabis Legalization in New Jersey: A Baseline Study,” was designed to create and share a statistical baseline that can be used to measure the future impact of legalization and “identify disparities among different communities.”
The 95-page publication released in February was steered by principal investigator Charles E. Menifield, dean of Rutgers University-Newark School of Public Affairs and Administration. Rutgers University’s Valerio Bacak and Vandeen Campbell are the principal co-investigators.
“As a result of the legalization and decriminalization of recreational marijuana, it is prudent to assess where the state currently stands on a number of factors related to marijuana usage,” start the investigators.
They follow by noting that their report will examine education, health, and law enforcement factors as they relate to youth and adults with respect to the legalization of recreational marijuana and its direct and indirect use.
Using a variety of existing secondary reports and studies, the researchers say their goal is “to provide a baseline that can be used to determine if there will be changes in these factors once cannabis is available in the retail marketplace.”
They follow with several key findings.
One is related to current marijuana usage in New Jersey which, according to data found in the 2021 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archives, is slightly lower than usage across the U.S.: For men, 45.2 percent in New Jersey compared to 48.6 percent in the U.S.; for women, 35.8 percent in New Jersey compared to 39.6 percent in the U.S.
The investigators report that male usage outpaced females’ by roughly 10 percentage points in New Jersey and across the country.
“Interestingly,” they add, “based upon the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data, half of users who initiated marijuana use in the past year were male (49.3 percent) and half were female (50.7 percent).
“The New Jersey data also indicated that between 2016 and 2019, marijuana usage for adults 26 years of age and older increased, while usage decreased for those 18 to 25 years of age.”
They also note that “marijuana usage among youths (12-17) rose between 2017 and 2019, from roughly 70,000 to 78,000 youths reporting usage in the prior year. Similarly, across the country, the overall usage rate among youth (12-17) also rose during this period.”
Another finding was connected to marijuana-related arrests in New Jersey.
Using data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program, the authors note “that the number of cannabis-related arrests for possession in New Jersey were either increasing slightly or were stable until 2015, when they increased dramatically.
“The total number of arrests for sale/production of cannabis (less than 5,000) was relatively low and stable when compared to arrests for possession. Every year between 2010 and 2019, at least 80 percent of all cannabis related arrests have been for possession.”
The FBI report also provided data regarding “the strikingly large disparities in cannabis-related arrests by age and race. In 2010, for instance, the number of arrests of black residents outnumbered the arrests of white persons by more than five times for selling marijuana. This number was slightly lower in 2019 at four-and-a-half times.”
The authors say racial differences in arrest rates for cannabis possession were also high. “In 2010, black residents were arrested at a rate that was three times higher than white residents. By 2019, black residents were four times as likely to be arrested when compared to white residents for possession of cannabis.”
Using information from health and behavioral service studies, the investigators turn to drug-related treatment and note that the number of persons 12 years and older admitted into a health care facility for marijuana use had decreased between the 2015-2018 period. (However, there was an increase in heroin usage among the same age group).
They continue to report that “paradoxically, despite an increase in arrests for younger adults (18-20), the number of older adults (26-50) admitted to treatment facilities increased while those aged 12-25 decreased from 2015-2018. The U.S. trend followed the same pattern. Among adults over 50 years of age, admissions to treatment facilities were relatively low and stable for the four-year period.”
“With respect to race, similar numbers of black and white marijuana abuse users were admitted into health care facilities in New Jersey, whereas across the country, admissions to health facilities for white users outnumbered black users 2.5 to 1.”
In regards to gender, the authors say females represented 24.5 percent of admissions in 2015 and this number increased to 28.8 percent in 2018. On the other hand, they say the percentage of men admitted decreased from 75 percent in 2015 to 71.2 percent in 2018. The national data for the same time showed a similar trend.
The authors then look at deaths related to drugs and focus on counties where drug overdose mortality was considerably higher: southern New Jersey.
“Cumberland, Camden, Salem, Cape May, Atlantic, and Gloucester Counties had dramatic increases in deaths due to drug overdoses between 2016 and 2021. In particular, Cumberland and Salem Counties saw notable increases in the number of deaths. The data also point to high levels of suicides in the southern counties of New Jersey, as compared with the rest of the state. Alarmingly, in the most recent year (2020), there has been an uptick in the number of suicides in the northeastern counties in New Jersey.”
And, finally, they looked at another existing situation that may be exacerbated with legalized cannabis: education.
“New Jersey graduation and dropout rates were relatively stable for the 2006 through 2020 period. In fact, New Jersey had one of the highest graduation rates (91 percent) in the country and one of the lowest drop-out rates (about 1 percent),” the authors write, citing 2021 New Jersey Educational Statistics.
“With respect to in-school suspensions,” the authors say, “black youth were suspended at a rate that was more than twice that of any other group in academic year 2018, and the gap widened and the number of suspensions increased in academic year 2019.
“Overall, compared with white students, black students missed more than twice as many days of school due to suspensions in academic years 2016 and 2018.”
The authors conclude the report by balancing the pros and cons of legalizing cannabis noting that it “can positively contribute to racial justice by protecting communities of color from the disproportionate number of marijuana-related police stops and arrests and the collateral consequences that an arrest can trigger for education, employment, and family life.”
On the other hand, they say, “excessive marijuana use can lead to poor cognitive functioning that can, in turn, negatively affect youth educational outcomes.”
To obtain a copy of the report, visit policylab.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NJSPL-Cannabis-Feb2022.pdf.
