Illinois Is Starting on the Next “Great Experiment”

On January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment came into effect, launching Prohibition across the country.  It was called, by some, the “Great Experiment.”  Needless to say, it did not work out as expected and, within fourteen years, it was repealed.

On Wednesday, Illinois began its own “Great Experiment,” though this one involves legalization, not prohibition, and it involves marijuana, not alcohol.  The question is how this new “Great Experiment” is going to turn out.

Not surprisingly, supporters are jubilant and, I assume, think there is nothing more to look at.  The success of legalization is already obvious.  Except, of course, it isn’t.  While it is true, as supporters of legalization say, that marijuana has been around for a long time, it is also true that being around while illegal is different than being around while legal.  

So the question is: Now that marijuana is legal, what kind of tests and studies are we going to do on its effect on the people who use it and its effect on the people around the people who use it?

And those studies need to be done quickly.  Because if the results of the legalization are not good, we need to be able to reverse the decision before it becomes locked in.  Cigarette smoking is legal not because it doesn’t hurt people but because, by the time we realized it hurt (i.e., killed) people, it was too late to prohibit it.

It something similar winds up being true of marijuana, we need to find that out while we still have the chance to reverse the decision to legalize it.