This study talks about long term use, but then seems to mostly focuses on teens and adolescents... I don’t think anybody for legalization is for letting kids use it any more than they are legal to drink beer or any alcohol.
Here is my 2 cents for anybody interested.
First off, in the short run, I think Colorado has had pretty positive results over all with tax revenue up and crime statistics down with just a short time to judge by so far, compared to prohibition tactics and the “war on drugs”.
Besides that, the only thing I can judge by is my own personal observations, at almost 50 years old now, I have a solid 30 years “adult life” being aware of drugs & alcohol in general and the people I know who are pot smokers have in the long term been far ahead of the alcoholics as far as living a happy and productive life. The Meth & Coke heads are the ones that both destroy families and seem to go to jail long term with most regularity. Strangely enough a large percentage of those pot smokers are the group that look young for their age and I have heard more than a few of them call it their “fountain of youth”. I started working as a drafter at 20 years old, working with a guy that was mid 40’s and wanted to share his wealth of life knowledge with a young wet behind the ears kid. He told me he started smoking at 15 and smoked daily within a few years of starting, now over 70 and still a daily smoker, there is one example of a good 50 years of daily use and still a clean and perfect bill of health... btw, his perspective gateway drug... his 2 big brothers started him out with speed, coke and lsd back in the early 60’s when he was just a teen, when he started smoking weed, the rest of the hard stuff got phased out because he realized how much better he felt in the morning after smoking weed than he did after using all that other crap...
I have another friend that was the biggest anti-pot person I have ever met, for the first 20 years I knew him. Thought they were all losers and low life people. Almost divorced his wife early on when she tried it at a party one night. He was a big guy, like 6’5 with size 16 foot, a big beer drinker, until he started having knee problems and foot problems, where he had to have multiple surgeries. He was on pain meds so often, he could not drink and finally just quit. Well within a few years, after being on prescription drugs and pain management for over 5 years, feeling like a zombie, asked his Doctor about Marijuana when Arizona legalized for medical use. His Dr. was all for it, went to bat for him and he was one of the first few hundred legal in Arizona. When he did start smoking, he just quit all the other prescriptions, thinking if this was going to work, it was going to work by itself, not in addition too... he has been off all that man made crap for 3 years now and feels like he has a life again. He does edibles, comes home from work and eats a couple cookies and smokes a little bit while waiting for the cookies to kick in... He has gotten his 70 y/o Mom to get her card for arthritis pain and his grandmother who had been wheel chair bound for over 5 years her card and now 2 years later the 95 year old woman is so spry she is up and around on her own every day. Both of them use a tincture he makes and they put under their tongue. There is a valid medical use for it and nobody will ever convince me otherwise!
Revenue has been below expectations. Where have you heard otherwise?