As Congress considers legalizing marijuana on the national level, some Republicans have raised concerns about the impact such a move would have on the country’s rising crime rate.
“In short, this bill would be an enormous gift to the cartels and gangs, and in the midst of a nationwide violent crime surge,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said last week at a hearing about Senate cannabis legislation.
Cotton is not the only GOP lawmaker to sound the alarm over reforming the rules around marijuana. In fact, the debate over legalization has raged for decades and, despite years of data from the states that have allowed the drug, produced little in the way of consensus.
