The Cannabis Conversations: Part IV with Robert MacCoun

The U.S. has an incoherent national drug policy. While states pass laws permitting the possession, sale, and distribution of marijuana for either medicinal or recreational purposes, Federal Law still prohibits the possession, sale and distribution of marijuana for any reason in all 50 states.

Robert MacCoun, of the Stanford Law School, discusses the ramifications of our current prohibition of marijuana and the likely effects if we fully legalize it.

About Our Guest

Robert J. MacCoun is the James and Patricia Kowal Professor at the Stanford Law School. He is a social psychologist and public policy analyst who has published numerous studies on a variety of topics, including illicit drug use, drug policy, judgment and decision-making, citizens’ assessments of fairness in the courts, social influence processes, and bias in the use and interpretation of research evidence by scientists, journalists and citizens.

He is the co-author of Drug War Heresies: Learning from other Vices, Times, and Places, which is considered a landmark scholarly analysis of the drug legalization debate. Rob has also written extensively on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. His publications and expert testimony on military unit cohesion were influential in the 1993 and 2010 policy debates about allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the US military.