Marijuana Legalization Would Reduce Lead Poisoning

One cost to marijuana prohibition that is often overlooked - prohibition presents a health hazard. From the Freakonomics blog:

[I]t turns out that the people suffering from lead poisoning had smoked marijuana that had been laced with lead to increase its weight, presumably in order to increase the drug dealers’ profits. The Leipzig doctors estimate that the contaminated marijuana had a 10 percent lead content.

If marijuana were decriminalized, as several people advocated in a quorum we published here, such contaminations would probably cease. On the other hand — based on the Leipzig doctors’ observations of the lead-poisoning patients — body piercing would go through the roof.

This reminds me of an article I read some time back about scientists at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Ill., who found that coffee imported from Brazil is often padded with foreign substances, including corn.

The coffee angle shows that contaminants are often added to legal products as well, because there is a monetary gain in doing so. The big question is - would less contaminants be added if marijuana were legal? I suspect this would be the case, since legalization would bring more reputable parties into the industry, more regulations would be introduced on purity, and it becomes far easier to sanction companies through the court system.