We are very grateful to Judge Steven Alm and his staff for our initial introduction to HOPE and for facilitating meetings with the many players engaged with the program. This study would not have been possible without the outstanding probation officers in the Integrated Community Sanctions unit and at the Adult Client Services division. We are thankful to both probation offices for providing space for our researchers, granting access to probation officers and probationers, and agreeing to comply with study protocols. We are grateful to the many judges, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, and court staff who provided feedback on early drafts of our survey. We would like to thank Mark Steinmeyer for coordinating a panel of methodologists, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss the design of the randomized controlled trial. We would like to thank the panelists:

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Here is a book by four leading experts who collaborate in answering questions about marijuana and its possible legalization. Everything you might want to ask, answered crisply and accurately! And the four authors give, at the end, their separate recommendations: they differ, but they've agreed on 149 answers. A remarkable collaboration, and a pioneering format worth emulating." -THOMAS SCHELLING, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences Should marijuana be legalized? Opinion couldn't be more evenly divided; about 50 percent of Americans say "yes." But what does "legalization" mean? Making it legal to use marijuana? Grow it? Sell it? Advertise it? If sales are legal, under what regulations? And with what taxes? Different forms of legalization might have very different results.Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know provides readers with a nonpartisan primer covering everything from the risks and benefits of using marijuana to the current laws, to the open scientific questions. The authors discuss the likely costs and benefits of legalization at the state and national levels and explore the "middle ground" of policy options between prohibition and commercialized production. The book also considers the personal impact of marijuana legalization on parents, heavy users, medical users, employers, and even drug traffickers.

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