Collateral consequences: Identifying top policy impacts of marijuana legalization for public health departments

Currently eighteen states have medical marijuana and two states have legalized its recreational use. There are a host of collateral consequences that occur as a result of this shift in policy. Public health departments--as well as public health lawyers--must identify and address new public health issues driven by this regulatory shift. Among others, public health departments must adapt educational and messaging campaigns, develop strategies to address greater access to, and diversion of, marijuana, deal with impairment on roads and in workplaces, and must deal with issues that affect youth in particular. They must do this against a backdrop of extremely limited research into marijuana in the form it is being used by the public in medicinal and recreational states. This paper will identify top policy considerations faced by public health in states where marijuana has become legal under state law and will attempt to identify resources or strategies employed in connection with those issues.