The legalization of recreational cannabis in Washington state (I-502) and Colorado (A-64) created a natural experiment with ancillary unknowns. Of these unknowns, one of the more heavily debated is that of the potential effects on public health and safety. Specific to public safety, advocates of legalization expected improvements in police effectiveness through the reduction in police time and attention to cannabis offenses, thus allowing them to reallocate resources to more serious offenses. Using 2010 to 2015 Uniform Crime Reports data, the research undertakes interrupted time-series analysis on the offenses known to be cleared by arrest to create monthly counts of violent and property crime clearance rate as well as disaggregated counts by crime type. Findings suggest no negative effects of legalization on crime clearance rates. Moreover, evidence suggests some crime clearance rates have improved. Our findings suggest legalization has resulted in improvements in some clearance rates.

中文翻译：

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大麻合法化率和犯罪清除率：测试科罗拉多州和华盛顿州的支持者断言

华盛顿州（I-502）和科罗拉多州（A-64）的休闲大麻合法化，创造了一项自然实验，涉及未知的辅助因素。在这些未知数中，争议最大的是对公众健康和安全的潜在影响。特定于公共安全的法律倡导者期望通过减少警察时间和对大麻犯罪的关注来提高警察效力，从而使他们能够将资源重新分配给更严重的犯罪。该研究使用2010年至2015年的《统一犯罪报告》数据，对已知通过逮捕得以清除的犯罪进行了中断的时间序列分析，以创建暴力和财产犯罪清除率的月度计数，以及按犯罪类型分类的计数。调查结果表明合法化对犯罪清除率没有负面影响。此外，证据表明，某些犯罪的清除率有所提高。我们的研究结果表明，合法化已导致部分清关率提高。