An investigation into the infrastructure, incentives, and revenue streams behind prohibition advocacy — using professional writer Alex Berenson’s career as a case study in how misinformation survives evidence.
Key Takeaways
Six years after Alex Berenson’s predictions of cannabis-driven crime and psychosis epidemics, the data show neither materialized.
Being wrong has not ended his media career — subscriber-driven revenue models reward narrative consistency over factual accuracy.
National violent crime data for 2024 show continued declines, including a 14.9% drop in murder.
It seems to me that the pattern that emerges when examining contemporary anti-cannabis discourse, which I have been doing for a while now, is not primarily ideological but economic. Modern media ecosystems reward narrative consistency over factual accuracy; revenue streams generate rational incentives to ignore contrary evidence; and professional misinformation infrastructures can survive, sometimes even thrive, after empirical refutation.
Alex Berenson’s trajectory since 2019 provides a useful case study. Not because he is exceptional, but because his career as a successful novelist and professional writer exposes the mechanics of how prohibition advocacy adapts when its predictions fail.
In January 2019, Berenson — a former New York Times reporter and bestselling novelist — predicted that cannabis legalization would trigger epidemics of psychosis and violent crime. He even called his book Tell Your Children, as a way to evoke the most profound fear real parents have: that our children will suffer from a damning mental illness… in this particular case as a consequence of poor advice.
Six years later, recreational cannabis is legal in 24 states, serving more than 150 million Americans, and medical cannabis is allowed in 40 states.
The catastrophes Berenson forecasted never arrived. Violent crime did not surge in legalization states. Homicide epidemics did not materialize. The apocalyptic mental-health collapse he warned of failed to appear.
The catastrophes Berenson forecasted never arrived. Violent crime did not surge. …
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Author: Rolando García / High Times
