Liquor lessons.

• Position: TRENDS & TRANSITIONS - Regulations for marijuana industry

Legislators charged with writing regulations for America's budding marijuana industry should look to alcohol and tobacco laws, a new report suggests.

"The lessons from the many decades of regulating alcohol and tobacco should offer some guidance to policymakers who are contemplating alternatives to marijuana prohibition and are interested in taking a public health approach," said Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center and a co-author of "Developing Public Health Regulations for Marijuana: Lessons From Alcohol and Tobacco."

In November 2012, Colorado and Washington voters became the first to legalize the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana. Bills calling for legalization for adult use have been proposed in 18 states, and ballot initiatives are being pursued in at least two.

The trend raises important questions about how to best allow the production, sales and the use of marijuana while also working to reduce related public health issues, such as increased dependence and addiction, consumption by minors, impaired driving and use of alcohol and marijuana at the same time, especially in public places.

Local, state and federal governments have regulated the sale and consumption of alcohol and tobacco for years. Among the things they have learned is that keeping prices artificially high reduces consumption.

Numerous studies have shown that when liquor taxes go up, people drink less, drive drunk less, suffer fewer alcohol-related diseases and commit fewer violent acts.

Raising taxes on cigarettes has similar effects--people are less inclined to start smoking and more inclined to cut back or quit, according to the report, published online by the American Journal of Public Health.

RAND researchers posed an interesting hypothetical: What if states, instead of private companies, ran their own marijuana industries? A...