Take it easy, man: Marijuana is not turning New Yorkers into murderers

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Perhaps no factor has enabled the much-heralded urban renaissance more than declining crime rates. Through much of the 1970s to 1990s, inner cities were widely perceived as war zones, overwhelmed by addiction-fueled property crime and violence between drug dealers. This was not all just perception. The murder rate in now-thriving cities was much higher 20 years ago than it is today. In New York, there were 2,245 murders in 1990 versus 328 last year. Washington, D.C., went from 479 in 1991 to 105 in 2014. Greater safety has allowed these cities to attract and retain residents and businesses that would previously have fled for the suburbs. That’s good news for the environment, because people in denser inner cities live a lower-carbon lifestyle than their suburban counterparts. In Manhattan, for example, the average resident has a carbon footprint about half that of a resident of New York’s suburbs...

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http://grist.org/cities/take-it-easy-man-marijuana-is-not-turning-new-yorkers-into-murderers/