PEOPLE UNDER THE INFLUENCE NOT VIOLENT

Smoking marijuana doesn't lead to violent crime, but it may lead to more
arrests of stoned criminals who engage in acts of violence, according to
two economists.

Rosalie Liccardo Pacula of the RAND Corp. and Harvard University graduate
student Beau Kilmer found that crooks under the influence of marijuana were
more likely to get caught, though pot smokers apparently were no more
likely to commit a violent crime in the first place. (But watch out for
alcohol abusers, Pacula said: People under the influence of booze were more
likely to commit violent crimes than people who hadn't been drinking.)

Pacula and Kilmer also found a positive correlation between marijuana use
and arrests for property and other "income producing" offenses such as
robbery and prostitution, which could either be explained by the notion
that people are more likely to commit nonviolent crimes while under the
influence--or, again, because they are more likely to get arrested, Pacula
said.

Pacula said their findings come with bushels of caveats. While the results
are statistically significant, the researchers say they don't have enough
data to estimate the overall impact of marijuana use on crime--just that
there's some effect. She also warned that pot smoking could be linked to
some kinds of violent crimes such as rape but not to others.

Their findings were based on a detailed analysis of national survey data
collected from arrestees and FBI crime reports. The results appear in a
working paper published this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research.