> I'm not sure how that flies with this: "An article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association found there was no increase in cannabis use among the general population or among previous users after their states legalized marijuana."

Simple: there is no possible way that's true. It fails every imaginable sniff test. Anecdotally, I never purchased marijuana when it was illegal and I do now. I know many people for whom the same is true. If marijuana were made illegal again tomorrow I would stop using it. I'm a normie middle-aged dad. The only way I'm buying and consuming marijuana is if I can walk into a shop and buy it legally. There must be millions of people like me.

This doesn't require any deep insight. It would be very surprising if ease of access had no effect on consumption.