In 2012, the process of legalizing marijuana began, eventually affecting dozens of U.S. states. Absurd drug laws—under which possession of cannabis products (unlike far more dangerous alcohol) was punished—finally began to change. While some expected enormous changes, others assumed nothing would change at all. Everyone was right.

Since marijuana, like other illegal addictive substances, had always been very easy for users to obtain, experts expected only one change with legalization: removing Mexican drug cartels from the trade in this substance. Because producing and smuggling illegal drugs carries a real risk of arrest or being murdered, that risk is offset by generous rewards for everyone involved in the narco-business. The consequence, however, is that the final product ultimately ends up much more expensive than it would be with legal production and transport.

Of course, Mexican drug traffickers understand this simple math as well, and they responded to the legislative changes in 2012 by gradually vacating their positions in the American marijuana market. The best evidence is provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics. The more states legalized marijuana, the less of it was smuggled into the country from abroad (primarily from Mexico), which is perfectly illustrated by the following chart.

In its annual National Drug Threat Assessment reports, the DEA ultimately confirmed the inability to compete with legal marijuana—despite having boycotted all efforts to legalize it for decades.

Removing foreign criminal organizations from the marijuana trade was thus an extremely welcome (though, of course, entirely predictable) change. Everything else remained the same.

Users

Before 2012, prohibition advocates warned that legalizing marijuana would cause a massive increase in the number of users. This was, naturally, a false alarm, since users were able to find their way to their substance very easily even before. The truth, once again, is hidden in the official statistics of U.S. government agencies.

As can be seen from statistics on heroin, methamphetamine, or cocaine users, the number of users of addictive substances constantly fluctuates – whether because a given drug is currently “in”, or because efforts to highlight the risks associated with its use do or do not succeed. That is why comparing the number of marijuana users before and after legalization in one specific state would not yield any relevant result. Nevertheless, there is a way to determine the consequences of legislative changes after 2012.

As of 2025, there were ten states where not only had commercial marijuana not been legalized, but those states also had the toughest conditions when it came to the use of medical cannabis. These so-called “Illegal states” are Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

On the opposite end are states where the use of commercial marijuana is fully legal. For comparison purposes, ten were selected where legalization occurred earliest. These “Legal states” include Washington (legalized in 2012), Colorado (2012), Alaska (2015), D.C. (2015), Oregon (2015), California (2016), Massachusetts (2016), Nevada (2017), Maine (2017), and Michigan (2018). Vermont did legalize recreational cannabis a few months earlier than Michigan, but licensed sales began a few years later.

These two groups, with completely different cannabis laws, offer the best opportunity to compare trends after 2012. The result is the following logarithmic chart showing the average share of regular marijuana users (in percent) in the states being compared:

As is clear from the two essentially identical lines as well as the data itself, legalizing marijuana did not bring about any apocalypse of the kind the DEA in particular warned about. In fact, a larger increase occurred in the states with the strictest laws. While in the “Legal states” the number of regular marijuana users increased 2.1x after 2011, in the “Illegal states” it reached 2.3. The same is true for the period after 2017, when marijuana had been legalized in all monitored “Legal states” (1.4 compared to 1.8 in the “Illegal states”).

And even if only the increase in percentage points is taken into account, between 2017 and 2024 it is exactly the same in both groups—5.92. After 2011, the values are 10.97 percentage points (in the “Legal states”) and 7.48 (in the “Illegal states”), which is the only one of the four monitored areas in which the increase in regular users was larger in states with legal marijuana. The final verdict is therefore clear. As experts have been warning for decades, the strictness of drug laws—just like destroying illegal fields or arresting dealers—has essentially no effect on the number of users. Unlike prevention and public awareness of the health risks associated with using addictive substances. Including marijuana.

Sources:

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. NSDUH State Releases. Marijuana Use in Past Month Among Individuals Aged 12 or Older. 2025-04-16. https://www.samhsa.gov/data/data-we-collect/nsduh-national-survey-drug-use-and-health/state-releases.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Enforcement Statistics Fiscal Year 2020. 2025-01-27. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics-fy2020.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Enforcement Statistics FY2018. 2024-05-20. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics-fy2018.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol Statistics. 2026-01-17. https://www.cbp.gov/document/foia-record/customs-and-border-protection-border-patrol-statistics.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Drug Seizure Statistics. 2026-01-17. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Nationwide Drug Seizures. 2026-01-17. https://www.cbp.gov/document/stats/nationwide-drug-seizures.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. United States Border Patrol: Apprehensions / Seizure Statistics – Fiscal Year 2011. 2013-04-15. https://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/border_security/border_patrol/usbp_statistics/usbp_fy11_stats.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General. Independent Review of The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Reporting of FY 2007 Drug Control Performance Summary. April 2008.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General. Independent Review of The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Reporting of FY 2010 Drug Control Performance Summary Report. January 2011.