As Congress considers
legalizing marijuana
on the national level, some Republicans have raised concerns about the impact such a move would have on the country’s rising crime rate.

“In short, this bill would be an enormous gift to the cartels and gangs, and in the midst of a nationwide violent crime surge,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)
said
last week at a hearing about Senate cannabis legislation.

Cotton is not the only GOP lawmaker to sound the alarm over reforming the rules around marijuana. In fact, the debate over legalization has raged for decades and, despite years of data from the states that have allowed the drug, produced little in the way of consensus.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for nonmedical use, according to the
National Conference of State Legislatures
.

Many more have created exceptions in their laws to allow for medical marijuana use.

And even in states that do not by statute allow recreational marijuana use, some liberal cities have backed away from prosecuting lower-level drug use or possession crimes, including those related to marijuana.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, for example,
announced
last spring that her prosecutors would no longer go after prostitution and drug possession — more than a year before her state moved to legalize recreational marijuana use. Voters in the state will
decide
whether to legalize the drug in November.

Crime has skyrocketed in Baltimore over the past two years….