OP-ED by Clayton Wood
As a constitutional conservative, I cannot count the number of times people have assumed I must be a libertarian.
That is partly because both groups believe in the Tenth Amendment and recognize how massively the leviathan of the federal government has grown beyond the limits the Constitution prescribes.
But I also noticed early on that many libertarians were strangely naive about America’s role in foreign policy, while being strangely religious about marijuana.
This week, the New York Times editorial board published something important, even if its conclusion would satisfy neither myself nor libertarians.
They admitted they were wrong. They wrote, “It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong.”
That is not a conservative blogger. That is not a preacher. That is not a “right wing think tank.”
That is the editorial board of the New York Times.
And it matters.
I love the phrase “Laboratories of democracy.” It was popularized by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, when he described how “a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
Over the last decade, we watched state after state run that experiment with marijuana. We were told the risks were minimal or nonexistent. We were told it was harmless. We were told the revenue would be staggering. We were told crime would decrease. We were told addiction was rare and manageable. We were told legalization would not lead to much greater use.
And now, after years of data, the Times is looking around and conceding what many parents, teachers, employers, doctors, and police officers have been saying quietly for a long time.
It is not going well.
The Times editorial board wrote plainly, “Legalization has led to much more use.”
Then they gave a number that should stop any serious adult in their tracks:
They say surveys suggest “about 18 million people in the United States have used marijuana almost daily” in recent years.
And they add this sentence, which is one of the most astonishing admissions in the entire piece: “More Americans now use marijuana daily than alcohol.”
Let that sink in.
For years, we were told marijuana was not like alcohol. It was not addictive. It was not dangerous. It was not something that would become a dominant cultural force.
Now the Times is telling us we have more daily pot users than daily drinkers. They also admit what many of us already knew. Once the drug becomes commercialized, it becomes industrialized.
They describe “Big Weed” and acknowledge what every adult should understand about any for profit vice industry: its incentive is not moderation, it is dependence.
The Times wrote: “More than half of industry sales come from the roughly 20 percent of customers known as heavy users.”
That is not freedom. That is not liberation. That is not “plant medicine.”
That is a business model.
And it is one that will always target the vulnerable.
I still have never smoked pot (not even like Bill Clinton‘s ” I did not inhale). I did not want to break the law, but I also observed negative impacts on people I cared about. At the time when pot was around me most in college, increased laziness and lack of memory seemed like exact costs I must avoid to function and graduate. I feared that I might enjoy it and suffer as a result. As a guy who enjoyed Widespread Panic and Phish concerts while sober I had genuine questions about whether alcohol or pot was more harmful societally. Some of those questions remain, but real harm is happening with pot.
The Times also acknowledges the human cost. They cite addiction, hospitalizations, psychosis, paranoia, and harm to bystanders through impaired driving. They even note a specific medical condition, writing:
“Each year, nearly 2.8 million people in the United States suffer from cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, which causes severe vomiting and stomach pain.”
That number is not a rounding error. That is a public health disaster. So far, so good.
But here is where the New York Times cannot help itself.
Even when the left admits an experiment has produced worse outcomes than expected, it still reaches for the same solution it always reaches for.
More federal power.
More federal taxation.
More federal regulation.
More federal agencies.
More centralized control.
They write, “Given the growing harms from marijuana use, American lawmakers should do more to regulate it.”
And then they propose what they call a “better approach,” including a federal tax, federal potency restrictions, and federal regulation of medical claims.
Now I want to say something clearly. The Times deserves credit for admitting reality. But their proposed solution is constitutionally incoherent.
The Constitution grants the federal government limited, enumerated powers.
Immigration is clearly a federal responsibility. The Constitution contemplates national borders, national sovereignty, and national citizenship. It makes sense that a nation has a national policy on who may enter, who may stay, and who may become a citizen.
But drugs and alcohol are not part of the enumerated powers. They existed in the 1700s and 1800s. And the history of federal attempts to regulate vice is not a story of moral triumph. It is a story of unintended consequences.
The federal government tried alcohol prohibition. And we got organized crime, corruption, violence, and a massive enforcement state.
Even when the goal was noble, the mechanism was destructive. That is one of the great lessons of American history.
And it is one of the reasons the Founders did not give the federal government a general police power. Local vice has historically been regulated at the state and local level, for good reason.
The Times is basically arguing that because the laboratories of democracy produced a mess, the solution is for Congress to step in and create a national marijuana tax regime.
But that is exactly backwards.
If the experiment went badly, the solution is not to nationalize the experiment.
The solution is to reverse it.
States should step back from the bong.
States should stop pretending this has been a harmless cultural shift.
States should stop treating marijuana as a revenue stream.
States should stop normalizing it in advertising, packaging, and public life.
And yes, some states should have the courage to admit they were wrong.
The Times writes, “A society should be willing to examine the real-world impact of any major policy change and consider additional changes in response to new facts.”
On that point, I completely agree.
But the “additional change” should not be a new federal bureaucracy.
It should be moral clarity.
It should be restraint.
It should be state-level repentance.
Because once the government becomes dependent on vice revenue, it becomes structurally incapable of moral clarity.
That is true of lotteries.
That is true of sports gambling.
That is true of marijuana.
A government that funds itself by selling temptation will never seriously fight the consequences of temptation.
The Times even admits this problem without fully seeing it. They note that the legal pot industry grew to more than $30 billion in U.S. sales in 2024, and that the industry is lobbying lawmakers.
This is what always happens.
The experiment begins as “freedom.”
It ends as a cartel of corporations with lobbyists.
And the people harmed most are not the wealthy professionals who take an edible on vacation.
The people harmed most are the heavy users, the anxious, the depressed, the teenagers, the poor, the underclass, and the families who cannot afford to lose a father or mother to a fog of daily intoxication.
This is where conservatives need to be honest too.
If you have spent years mocking the left for refusing to admit failure in welfare policy, crime policy, education policy, and family policy, then you should take note of this moment.
Because it is rare.
A major institution of elite opinion is admitting it was wrong.
They write:
“The unfortunate truth is that the loosening of marijuana policies, especially the decision to legalize pot without adequately regulating it, has led to worse outcomes than many Americans expected.”
That sentence is a confession.
And it is also a warning.
The modern American pattern is simple.
We normalize vice.
We commercialize it.
We call it freedom.
We watch it harm people.
And then we create a new federal program to manage the wreckage.
That is not the path to health.
It is the path to a larger state, a weaker people, and a more addicted society.
If you want a nation capable of liberty, you need citizens capable of self government.
And citizens who are constantly intoxicated, constantly medicated, constantly distracted, and constantly dependent are not capable of self government.
So yes, I agree with the Times on one crucial point.
America has a marijuana problem.
But I reject their instinctive solution.
The answer is not a new federal tax.
The answer is not a new federal regulatory regime.
The answer is not to build a new national machine.
The answer is for states to admit what the data now makes undeniable.
This experiment has not been harmless.
And the courageous thing now is not to double down.
It is to change course.
The laboratories of democracy have produced the results.
Now we should have the courage to respond like adults with moral agency who learn from our mistakes. Not like addicts in the throes of addiction.
Clayton Wood is a Knoxville attorney and pastor.
