Cannabis Dispensaries Associated with Alternating Neighborhood Crime
Ten U.S. states and the District of Columbia allow the sale, possession, and use of cannabis for recreational purposes, and 33 states and the District of Columbia allow medical cannabis.
Lorine A. Hughes, associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, who led the study, said: “We found that neighborhoods with one or more medical or recreational dispensary saw increased crime rates that were between 26 and 1,452% higher than in neighborhoods without any commercial marijuana activity. But we also found that the strongest associations between dispensaries and crime weakened significantly over time.”