Greater than a social experiment, is testing drug legalization as an economic experiment. One of the predictive outcomes of legalization is the MJ would drop in price and drive the legal trade out of business. It turns out, as many others predicted, that legal MJ would be taxed and regulated thus the price would not drop. Turns out in Colorado, this prediction is more than true. Legal MJ is ten time more expensive than illegal MJ. This is increasing illegal activily just as high cigarette tax causes bootlegging from other states and Canada.
I would also suspect that the illegal trade will start producing more potent MJ not allowed by the state. This will drive more to the illegal trade.
Bottom line, there is a personal liberty argument with drug use, but the idea that legalization will reduce crime does not fit the economic outcomes.
Just ask the Governor.
Also, as long as there's questionable legality anywhere along the supply chain from the plant in the soil to end user, then uncertainty will be injected into any business decision surrounding it, which will undoubtedly drive up prices. My guess is that prices of legal weed will come down *if* a predictable state regulatory environment and a reasonable tax structure evolves, and the looming specter of fedgov interference is eliminated.
Alas, I see politics getting in the way and screwing any possibility of that happening, at least in the near term. And I doubt that federal prohibition laws will be repealed anytime soon, so that Damocletion (?) sword will remain dangling.