State legalization of medical marijuana may also be associated with potential health, economic, and social gains that we do not consider in this paper. Benefits of legalization may include relief of pain and nausea for cancer and HIV/AIDS patients, tax revenue from marijuana sales, control of crime, decreased costs of the criminal justice system, and reduction in the disproportionate incarceration of minorities for possession of small quantities of marijuana (Levine and Reinarman, 1991; van den Brink, 2008; Wodak, 2002). While we recognize such potential benefits, our study cannot make any statements on such aspects of legalization of medical marijuana.
