One Percent
of American adults is now behind bars. The connection between the higher and higher incarceration rate and the lower and lower crime rate remains hotly disputed. Still, the incarceration rate is a remarkable and disturbing figure. (Hat tip: Kieran Healy)
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It's a bit more complicated than that.
Issue is whether we are putting people into prison for too many things.
If it were made illegal to wear a red t-shirt, and then we put into prison everyone who wore a red t-shirt, we could say, that the "crime rate" went down.
But would that really be a meaningful statistic? Would we care that the crime rate went down?
If 1% of the society were made up of murderers, rapists, and pedophiles, no one would say: "Man, it's a shame so many people are in prison."
But that's not the case. There are a lot of people in prison (who are getting raped, by the way) who didn't do anything resembling murder, rape, or even robbery.
In 2006 the American imprisonment rate was 730% of the average of the other OECD countries (738 per 100,000 for the US version an average of 117), and 320% of the rate of the next highest OECD country (Poland, at 228).
Despite the enormous difference in incarceration rates, the US is middle of the pack in terms of crime rates in the OECD. A 2000 study found 7 OECD countries with a lower crime rate than the US (as measured by the percentage of the population victimized by any crime in the previous year). And the murder rate in the US, of course, is off the charts compared to other OECD countries.
There are obviously many other important differences between these countries, and so a lack of correlation doesn't prove mass incarceration doesn't reduce crime rates, but it casts some doubts on the obviousness of the point.
Cross-national comparisons are not very useful in evaluating US imprisonment rates, as patterns of crime are very different in the US than in other countries as are clearance and ajudication rates. For one instance, the US has a much higher rate of severe crimes against person (homicide, rape, armed robbery) than any other developed country (although I think Scotland may be overtaking us in homicide)
So, even if you think one or another activity--selling pot, for example--ought to be legal, the fact is the guy who went into the biz had a choice. In fact, by the time he got finally busted, he'd have been excruciatingly conscious of The Law and how to dodge.
So, even if they ought not be "criminals", they did decide to take the chance.
Their choice to start now instead of waiting until the stuff was legal.
Reading various blogs which look at the UK, one reason the crime rate is where it is--as in not higher--is that the citizenry is getting tired of calling the cops for nothing.
Interesting case: Cops told a guy they couldn't help him get his stolen property back. So he advertised for it. They arrested him for receiving--or attempting to--stolen property.
Who'd bother calling the cops?
Thus, lower reporting than would otherwise be justified.
Even assuming that's true, it doesn't follow that it's a good thing. An unjust punishment is an unjust punishment. The ends do not justify the means. I'm surprised that a libertarian blog..., as the joke goes. (is that still a joke?)
Since I know lots of people that I know or have pretty good reason to suspect are committing prison offenses who are outside.
The US has high rates of crime for anything involving guns, like murder and possible armed robbery (although I haven't looked at those numbers). I don't think it's particularly unusual for rape, though.
According to the 2002 International Crime Victims Surveys, 1.5% of Americans were a victim of a sexual crime. The OECD average was 2.1%. The US is also below average for assaults and robberies (although the source I looked at doesn't distinguish between armed robberies and non-armed robberies).
Most studies do not count people serving county time -they only select people serving a prison sentence.
Nor do they include people on parole, probation, half-way houses, and everything in between. Technically, these people are not incarcerated, but since they forfeit almost all of their rights and are constantly being monitored and drug tested and whatever - i would count them as well.
Putting all these people into one category, I think the 1% goes up significantly. The linked article mentions all the people in county jail, but doesn't say clearly (unless i missed it) whether these people make up the 1% figure.
And yes, a very large portion of all this is drug war related. You cannot honestly talk about prison population rates and not recognize this.
Why are people surprised that the prison population rate goes up every yr while the number of crimes go down? Could it be a combination of a) mandatory minimum drug laws b) enhanced sentencing for repeat offenders (and by this I mean a guy who gets caught with a few grams of crack the first time and gets 2 yrs probation, the second time 1-3 yrs in the bighouse, the third time 5 yrs, etc... 3) three strikes laws 4) let's get tough on crime politicians who get elected every yr since 1972 or so and who keep adding to the problems of 1-3 above??
Ya - that would explain it for me.
What I like about the numbers: it says 1 out of every 100 american adults is behind bars. But the number for hispanic adults is 1 outta 35 and for african american adults - 1 outta 15.
Throw in a few felony disenfranchisement statues and I think we have a kinder and gentler version of Jim Crow. For poor people. Only this time everybody loses their rights as the drug war and the strenous efforts of the federal/state judiciary and sup ct to uphold almost every constitutionally odious practice the drug war entails hurts us all.
I got news for the drug warriors: THE DRUGS WON! Can we go back to having a constitutional republic now?
War on Some Drugs.
Not sure if I'm convinced, but it nonetheless an interesting hyposthesis.
Agreed, I just started Season 4 of “Oz” last night and there’s a great line from one of the inmates, Tobias Beecher, who used to be a lawyer before being incarcerated for vehicular homicide:
The point is that even if I disagree with some of the criminal laws we have on the books, the people who broke them knew what they were doing and should have known the consequences. Even though I might think the WOSD is counter-productive like Prohibition was, if the crack dealer who might technically qualify as a “nonviolent drug offender” was going to try to sell to my kid or some other minor, I say let him rot in prison.
* Which turned out not to be true.
And if the crack dealer managed to make that sale to your child--would you also say "let my child rot in prison"?
Since 1989, the courts began dumping §11550 cases using various pretexts and have turned what were three-page reports into twenty pages of redundancy. To reduce burglary statistics, the LAPD now reports many burglaries by incorporating thefts into "trespass investigations." And because theft, trespass, and §11550 are considered "non-violent crimes," only a handful of LA's most captivating burglars see prison.
Because of these factors, I doubt that LA's crime-weary residents report more than twenty percent of all thefts and burglaries they suffer, while the chief and mayor congratulate themselves for reducing crime statistics so significantly. The measure of a city does not come with how few criminals we incarcerate, but by how safe our community really is.
Based upon my years with the LAPD, I suspect that our city and state incarceration rates would DROP significantly over the next decade IF we resumed the arrest, conviction, and incarceration of these serial criminals who number approximately 50,000 in LA alone. Like three-strikes, addicts who endured 180 days for addiction would re-think their lifestyle when they get out. JQ Wilson's "Broken Windows" corroborates this as well.
Finally, NO - legalizing drugs wouldn't work either. Unemployable heroin, amphetamine, and cocaine addicts would still commit property crimes to pay for their legal drug use.
Agreed, whenever I hear someone claim that our prisons are filled with “nonviolent drug offenders” (read: someone who was only convicted of a “nonviolent” drug offense), I’m reminded that while Al Capone ordered the deaths of dozens of people, they ultimately only nailed him for income tax evasion. And even though I favor the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment and think the income tax ought to be abolished, I don’t consider it at all an “unjust punishment” for Capone to have gone to prison for income tax evasion.
Er... that's an unusual definition of developed country. Mexico isn't great, but it's still not exactly retarded.
You don't say what a section 1150(a)H&S is. Is that a property crime, being an addict? What?
As to your notion that legalizing drugs wouldn't work because these people are unemployable and would still need money to get drugs, you are missing two things. First, a lot of these people DO work, just intermittently. Secondly though, the drugs would drop in price drastically. How many times do folks commit major property crimes for cigarettes? It happens, but extremely rarely, and usually when the person is drunk. Why do you think cocaine, heroine etc would be different?
You are of course aware that drug crimes aren't particularly well tailored (actually aren't tailored at all) to prevent these actions, whereas, conveniently enough, vandalism and burglary are crimes that are quite well tailored to prevent these actions. Perhaps if cops were less focused on drug busts they would be able to devote more time to stopping car windows from being smashed and burglaries from occuring, and you would have less to worry about.
What was the price of alcohol during Prohibition compared to after Prohibition?
And the prison camps should be self-financing because it is a crime to steal money from citizens (aka "taxation") to finance air-conditioned quarters and three meals for criminals. Each prison would be a Nike factory and farm. (This, btw, would do more to rehabilitate crooks than all the social workers and counselors in the world times ten.)
If your goal is to spread fear and to centralize power, criminalize everything you can, whether it be short term loans to losers, gambling on ponies, enjoying recreational drugs, enjoying recreational sex with girls of easy virtue, going 20 MPH over a ridiculously low speed limit, having two beers with dinner, etc.
So, what goal have our fine leaders elected to pursue. Ahem.
I agreed with the recently departed Bill Buckley - the War on Drugs has done far more damage to far more people than the drugs themselves could ever have done.
Not everyone who smokes pot is an addict. Lots of such people hold ordinary jobs and can easily afford it. They have no need or desire to resort to crime to raise the money.
No surprise; our society made a conscious decision to close most of the mental hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s, for a variety of reasons (of which cost was actually pretty minor). Contrary to conventional wisdom, psychotics on average are actually more violent than non-psychotics. There's a reason that we are now used to crazy people going on murderous rampages--where this was actually quite shocking because of its rarity when I was growing up.
About 5 percent of drug offenders in federal prison and 27% of drug offenders in State prisons are incarcerated for simple possession. How many of those were originally charged with a more serious offense but plead down to simple possession, it doesn’t say.
I remember when simple possession of small quantities was made an infraction in California--for a few weeks, everywhere I went, people were openly smoking pot. (I hate the smell of pot.) My daughter tells me that when she and her friends were 13, they would walk down the street, smoking joints, and the police would just wave.
I know that marijuana possession is still unlawful in Idaho. But if anyone is going to prison for possession, it's almost certainly because of possession for sale.
Sad to say, many of the problems that get people sent to prison reflect pretty serious problems that may not be very easy to fix. I've read that the vast majority of female prison inmates were sexually abused as children. Is anyone surprised? Does anyone have much hope that people who have been severely psychologically damaged are going to be repaired?
I fear that the best we can do with violent criminals is to lock them up so that they aren't a danger to the rest of us--and put our energy into trying to prevent any more damaged children. This doesn't mean that violent criminals need to be unnecessarily mistreated or brutalized--but it also doesn't mean that we need to let them out because we feel sorry for them, either.
While "The ends do not justify the means" is a catchy phrase, it certainly doesn't reflect most people's actual morals. Honestly, if a group has one innocent and 99 murderers who are indistinguishable, is incarcerating them all not justified by the many additional lives that would be saved? Does "beyond a reasonable doubt" cast too wide a net for convicting those who take another's life?
Actually that reminds me to wonder whatever happened to Raich.
As to why this might be the case, it is interesting that high incarceration rates are pervasive throughout all 50 states of the U.S., although they are especially high in the deep south.
If you look at incarceration divided by total population (not ideal, of course, but still a useful indicator), the state with the lowest incarceration rate is Maine at 273 per 100,000 residents. This is still higher than every major Western European country and a good number of middle-income central and Eastern European countries as well. It is in the same neighborhood as the Baltic states and lower than Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and Russia.
There is clear evidence that some categories of mental illness have genetic components, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I do not find it implausible that high rates of criminal behavior are at least in part related to genetic difficulties. Perhaps what we are seeing the result of Europe having exported many of its criminals for centuries.
What are the crime rates in Australia and Canada like?
Does anybody know if that's true, or just an urban legend??
The NYT story danced around the subject of how many white men are incarcerated, but didn't actually say. Does anyone know that figure, and how it relates to incarceration rates in the rest of the OECD?
Of some importance also is that neither Australia nor Canada had large numbers of African slaves shipped to them--and the descendants of those slaves are very disproportionately involved in violent crime in the U.S. today. You are going to doubtless get very upset for me pointing this out, but it is just fact. About 11% of the U.S. population is black, and yet typically 45-50% of those charged with murder are black (and overwhelmingly, their victims are also black).
One additional point: the average age of blacks in America is typically 7-8 years less than the average age of whites. Since peak violent crime age is typically about 18, at any given time, a much larger percentage of black men in the U.S. will be in their peak violent crime years. The racial disparity in the rates of criminal justice supervision for the under 30 set might be largely the result of the larger number of black men who are in the peak violent crime years.
Nicotine metabolizes over the course of four to twelve hours and beyond, which is why a nicotine addict can sleep through the night without waking at two and six for a cigarette. They can also function in the workplace while under the influence. Nicotine basically replaces a naturally-produced neurochemical.
Cannabis metabolizes over the course of weeks, which is why THC addicts can abstain for weeks at a time. But heroin and cocaine metabolize over a few very short hours, day and night, without interruption. Heroin and cocaine addicts (not weekend chippers) spend their entire day looking for crime targets, looking for drugs, being high, or suffering from crippling and painful withdrawal symptoms. Meth intoxication lasts much longer, and like heroin and coke, the behavioral effects are far more disruptive than nicotine. Like smokers and alcoholics, addicts use for the rush but, most importantly, to avoid withdrawal. It's more complicated than I have stated, but I suggest you would rather be around a desperate THC or nicotine user than a desperate crack or heroin addict.
There IS a solution, however. I proposed decades ago that addicts should have access to pharmaceutical doses of whatever drug they want, under the direct supervision of medical professionals. Those addicts would be housed on closed military bases, secure and far from mainstream society. Also available would be the best rehabilitation available. Addicts who are recognized by courts would be required to test clean for six uninterrupted months before release from the secure facility. Crack, heroin, and meth addicts would not need to prostitute themselves, steal, or commit other crimes to perpetuate their addiction, nor would they harm themselves beyond the “behavioral toxicity” of the drugs themselves. Heroin addicts don’t rape – and they don’t need to steal when they’re high. They’re actually very mellow people to deal with. And they would be secured from mainstream society, far from vulnerable at-risk kids who they target for Fagan-like relationships.
Rehabilitation, for the most part, is a profitable scam. Unless the addict has “a significant stake in society,” it's unlikely that an AIDS-infected crack addict will care much about the spread of disease, their unborn baby, or cleaning themselves up. Like winos, they pursue happiness by getting high until they die. Nothing else satisfies.
I’m not writing everyone off. This is why they must test clean for six months. They can choose rehab or an uninterrupted supply of pharmaceutical drugs. The initial cost would be huge, but gradually offset by reduced property (and other crimes), a significantly reduced prison population, and the attrition of non-reproductive inmates.
Other components to my plan:
1) Anyone can grow anything for personal use in their home, HOWEVER, any commercial redistribution or any size (sell to a friend) would result in heavy fines, sentences, and asset forfeiture. Because you could “grow our own,” market forces would make interdiction ALMOST unnecessary. After all, why would you buy someone’s stinkweed for $250/ounce when you could legally grow your own personal supply at home for pennies on the dollar?
2) The US should buy direct from international drug producers. So, for example, an Afghan poppy village would sell direct to the US. In exchange, the village would agree to gradually convert a percentage of their fields into other agricultural crops. Over ten or twenty years, the village would convert their fields entirely. This plan would require a diplomatic and economic/commercial coordination between the countries. The plan would eventually cost a fraction of today’s interdiction costs.
“Perhaps if cops were less focused on drug busts they would be able to devote more time to stopping car windows from being smashed and burglaries from occurring, and you would have less to worry about.”
There are far more criminal addicts than drug dealers. If I arrest a burglar, I clear a crime. But if I arrest an addict, I PREVENT hundreds, maybe thousands of crimes and millions of dollars in losses. Finding addicts is much easier than finding burglars. On average, I arrested between four and five addicts a day before the stressed courts and prosecutors blocked our efforts.
For 2005, the last year I could find the rates for easily, the incarceration rate for black men was 3,145 per 100,000, versus 471 per 100,000 for white men.
I don't have comparable numbers for the rest of the OECD, and obviously a racial breakdown like that wouldn't make sense for most OECD countries. If you just double the incarceration rates in the OECD, and so grossly overstate the figure, the average incarceration rate for men in the OECD would be 234 per 100,000. In addition to being over double the average, the US incarceration rate for white men would still be higher than the rate for all men of any other OECD country.
Both Canada and the US (although not Australia) have lower crime rates (as measured by the percent of people victimized in the past year) than the United Kingdom.
“I seem to recall reading that some incredibly high percentage of the prison population, like 40%, consisted of people convicted of drug possession. No violence, no trafficking, just having drugs, and for most of them, the drug was marijuana.”
Except for major operations, marijuana is mostly ignored by California cops. And there’s often a huge difference between what someone’s convicted of and what kind of drugs they take. More often than not, intoxication is a lesser-included offense, nothing more. The compelling stat is that almost all inmates use, or are addicted to, illicit drugs.
How many of you who are so happy that drug users are behind bars would be willing to have your 17 year old son anal raped for a couple of years for getting caught with a joint at a party in the wrong state?"
Unless you know of one, I can't think of a single state that would place a 17-year-old convicted joint smoker with murderers, rapists, and gang members. In most cases, juvenile offenders are questioned, released, or placed on probation.
HOWEVER, prison systems in Calcutta, San Salvador, Rio, and Nairobi boast lower recidivism rates than anywhere in the US. In my experience, nothing rehabilitates like punishment. And in conservative places like Maricopa County AZ, prisoners aren't coddled and they are unusually safe from assaults.
From your first comment:
Based upon my years with the LAPD, I suspect that our city and state incarceration rates would DROP significantly over the next decade IF we resumed the arrest, conviction, and incarceration of these serial criminals who number approximately 50,000 in LA alone. Like three-strikes, addicts who endured 180 days for addiction would re-think their lifestyle when they get out. JQ Wilson's "Broken Windows" corroborates this as well.
From another comment
“Not everyone who smokes pot is an addict. Lots of such people hold ordinary jobs and can easily afford it. They have no need or desire to resort to crime to raise the money.”
Most THC addicts don’t know they’re addicted until they abstain for three or four weeks. The withdrawal is also milder than alcohol, heroin, cocaine, or meth. Although I have no personal addiction experience, the symptoms appear to be similar to nicotine withdrawal, except for nicotine’s faster onset of withdrawal.
With time, addicts can recover from addiction to all drugs except opiates. In that case, the pituitary gland does not restart endorphin production that continuously helps “normal healthy people” deal with stress and pain.
Most heroin junkies shoot until their forties or fifties, when they die or get too old or disabled to commit crimes. Unless rescued, most either reside in shelters or use alcohol to medicate themselves until their liver or renal function fails, or they die from exposure.
The next time you see someone with a "homeless - please help" sign, think twice before giving them cash. If they're homeless and want help they'll be in a shelter. If their begging for cash they want money for drugs or alcohol. If you still feel bad for them, buy them a sandwich - but don't be surprised if they throw it back at you.
Sorry, this doesn't happen.
Agreed it's generally the case that it doesn't happen, moreover I’d be willing to bet the majority of those in prison for “simple possession” plead down from a more serious offense or were more intimately involved with drug trafficking (e.g. runners) than just some idiot hophead looking to score some pot.
Something else to keep in mind is that many of us who are sympathetic to relegalization/decriminalization do so with the caveat that it be treated like alcohol and tobacco and can only be legally sold to adults. Much of the illegal drug trade today, including the oft-martyred “nonviolent drug offenders,” is directed towards minors. So many (probably most) of the people in prison now for drug-related offenses probably would still be in prison for selling to minors or other offenses.
Prohibitionists typically counter that even with adults only permitted, somebody would sell or give drugs to children. Of course, they conveniently forget that's precisely what drug dealers do now under current drug prohibition, and that prohibition provides economic incentive to do so. It's also what alcohol dealers did under alcohol prohibition.
A major difference between a sweeping prohibition legal policy and an adults only policy is that under the latter a sales license can be yanked administratively. So barkeeps and liquor merchants who want to stay in legal business generally try to avoid selling to minors. There is no reason to believe that legal drug merchants would not do the same.
I don't have any illusions that laws are going to make much of a difference on this. Publicizing the increasing evidence of marijuana's apparent part in increasing psychoses later in life is more likely to make a difference.
I tend to agree that the respectable proponents of drug legalization usually state that it should be for “adults only.” My point was in response to those who go on about the “nonviolent drug offenders” that are supposedly crowding federal and State prisons. Unless someone is going to take the position that it should be legal to sell it to minors (which I think you and are both in agreement isn’t a respectable position), most of those drug offenders would probably still be behind bars. Which is why even though I’m generally sympathetic to the idea of relegalizing drugs for adults, I’m not at all persuaded by arguments that suggest we’d be freeing up significant resources to go after “real criminals.”
Here’s where I think the comparison between the WOSD and Prohibition breaks down a bit and that is that alcohol is different from illegal drugs because generally when Prohibition was in place, there wasn’t a vibrant illegal market targeting children such as there is today in the case of the illegal drugs. Making it legal to sell to adults isn’t going to cause that market to evaporate and unless we are going to make it legal (which I and others would oppose) there is still going to be a WOSD that will have shifted its focus to going exclusively after those selling to minors.
Wow.
I don't know what my parents would have given me as a reward for getting good grades in high school. (The occasion never arose.) But it would certainly not have been dope.
I hung with the I'm-with-the-band, flannel-shirt-over-black-t-shirt crowd while in HS in the early- to mid-1980s. NOT the "Say no to drugs crowd." We were all kids whose parents were not active in oversight, and who didn't seek to get us involved in other activities.
But not one of us had a parent who would provide us with any illegal substance. Not even beer--wittingly.
Our parents may have been guilty--as the Act of Contrition says--"of what they have failed to do." But we were never activley abetted by adults. And we turned out to be total losers. (Among the eight of "The Guys," we have now collected four degrees. I have three of them.) I can hardly imagine what would have happened if mom and dad were passing out the Black Lebanese.
You made some good points in your post about stopping property crimes due to drug addiction. Although a wee bit authoritarian in your other posts - i agree with you regarding crime prevention and rehab.
The story about an increased link in psychosis in marijuana smokers is 100% bunk. Varius professionals have debunked it - and it wouldn't be surprising to know they fudged the numbers to make a headline outta nothing. In reality, normal people who dont smoke have like a .001% chance of being schizophrenic. If you smoke pot regularly, you have like a .004% chance. The headline: POT SMOKERS 4x more likely to be psycho. (Note, numbers aren't 100% accurate, im going on memory - but this is the jist of it). Smoking tons of skunk weed or not - your changes of aquiring schizophrenia are still around nil.
And I would take grave exception to your claim about marijuana 'addicts.' 95% or more of marijuana smokers, and there are millions of them, have no adverse consequences from smoking and in fact, often times, the most adverse thing that can happen is that they get caught and arrested with the herb. Thats a fact. The ONDCP and others can claim that marijuana related rehab admissions are up 200% to lure you into thinking its so dangerous - when in reality, almost all of those increased admissions are due directly to court diversion programs to avoid convictions on their permanent records.
Heroine and meth and the rest I dont really have an opinion on. But arresting over 700,000 Americans a yr on pot related charges is a complete and utter waste of money, time and effort. The disinformation propaganda surrounding this issue, like your psychosis story, fuels the prohibitionist fire. Its needs to be put out. Now.
There are plenty of countries that take a much more relaxed approach to drug addiction and have figured out ways to reduce societal costs and property crimes significantly. Not to mention reducing AIDS/Hepatitis cases and what not with needle exchanges, etc...
The sooner we realize that prison and court ordered rehab almost never work to get these hard core addicts clean the better off we all will be.
I think the shifted focus, and presumably resources, of enforcement to "selling to minors" would have several worthwhile effects.
First, it would concentrate resources and focus on what most agree is a primary problem of all drugs, legal or illegal.
Second, it would likely have the support of most anti-prohibitionists, and even of adult users of currently illegal drugs.
Third, that secondary effect of anti-prohibitionist support would increase the effectiveness of enforcement against selling to children.
Does marijuana affect memory, too? :-)
The fact is that the chances of acquiring schizophrenia are frighteningly high--and increasing that risk by 40% seems like a good risk? Do you play Russian Roulette, too?
I also have to grit my teeth everyone says something like, "I seem to recall reading that some incredibly high percentage of the prison population, like 40%, consisted of people convicted of drug possession. No violence, no trafficking, just having drugs, and for most of them, the drug was marijuana."
As you and others have pointed out, almost no one goes to prison for simple posession of marijuana. I'd be surprised if 1% of prison inmates are there for simple possession of weed. Cocaine or Heroin, yes, but even then, it's usually after a few failed attempts at probation and rehab. And I've never seen a criminal with a string of posession convictions who didn't also have a bunch of violent and property crimes to go along with them.
Part of the reason that we have fought a continual battle about regulation of intoxicants (at first, alcohol, and other drugs at a later stage) throughout American history is that intoxicants lower inhibitions, and cause people to commit crimes that they otherwise might not. From what I have read, sometimes not even the crimes that you expect, such as murder, rape, and child abuse, but even economic crimes, such as robbery and burglary. Perhaps people who commit these economic crimes get loaded to get enough "Dutch courage"--but I do sometimes wonder if ideas floating around in their back of their brains start to make sense when sufficiently intoxicated.
It is worth remembering that Horace Wells, the dentist who first attempted to demonstrate anesthesia using nitrous oxide at Massachusetts General Hospital (it didn't work) later committed suicide in a New York City jail. Why? He had been arrested for spraying sulfuric acid on some women he had picked out at random--apparently, the result of falling in with some characters while high on chloroform. There is no reason to think Wells would have done something like this, except for the inhibition-reducing effects of an intoxicant.
I'm shocked to discover that schizophrenia costs about $8 billion in year in direct disability payments, and about $50 billion a year in health care costs. If that 40% increase in psychosis is right, and there is a causal connection, this would argue that marijuana use, by increasing the fraction of schizophrenics, is costing the society about $23 billion a year. That's a lot of money so that those of you who don't go psychotic can get mellow and start giggling stupidly.
As someone who spent a year in Germany in my teens, and then came back to the US, it was very striking to me that US teens had a much higher incidence of bingeing on booze, general irresponsibility with intoxicants, and tended to get in trouble (either health-wise or legally) than the kids I knew in Germany, who were mostly introduced to alcohol by their parents in a controlled setting.
I don't have any handy study to pull out, but sane parents introducing their kids to alcohol in a controlled fashion seems intuitively much better than waiting for them to figure it out at a kegger with no supervision.