This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, April 10th, 2015. I'm Caleb Brown.

What does the future of marijuana legalization look like?

In his new book, Weed the People, author Bruce Barcott visits an American industry as it begins

to enter legitimate commerce.

We spoke about the book yesterday.

You live in Washington. As you noted before we started recording,

you held your nose in 2012 and voted yes on legalization because you had a great many reservations

about it.

And just to start, what have you learned since November 2012?

Well I've learned that I think you know like you say I held my nose I'm the swing voter on this issue

I had a lot of reservations about legalization. I'm the father of two

young teenagers, not a pot user. I hadn't used it since college. You know, didn't even

like the smell of the stuff. But you know I this book is basically a two-year

journey trying to answer the question what did we do when we legalized

marijuana and I think that at the end of the book you, I took a deep dive into the science, into the medicine of this stuff, and spent a lot of time in both emerging industries in Washington and Colorado.

And in the end, I think we're doing the right thing. I think we have done the right thing in both states.

We're going very slow in Washington. Things are going quicker in Colorado.

But in the end, I think that this is a substance that should not just be

legalized but legalized and regulated. I think we are handling it much like we handle

alcohol and I think that is sort of the rational and sane way to go.

All right, so there are several issues that, where science plays a key role that have really yet to be resolved when it comes to marijuana.

One of those is intoxication and the other one is the actual effect of marijuana particularly on young people and that those two things

...