A copy of Contingencies—the official magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries—came in the mail on Monday. I don’t know why—I’m not an actuary; I’m not even in a celebrity death pool. But there’s some interesting stuff in there. AAA president Mary D. Miller, in a column titled “It Takes an Actuary,” boasts that “our world will be more vital than ever” in the era of drones and Big Data, as people find more and more innovative ways to die; the puzzle columnist is retiring.
But I was mostly struck by the cover story:
Weed!
With the legalization movement racking up victory after victory, the writer, Hank George, seeks to correct a misunderstanding among his actuarial colleagues—that marijuana “conferred the same relative mortality risk as cigarette smoking.” To the contrary, he writes, “recreational marijuana users enjoy better physical fitness and get more exercise than nonusers” and “have even been shown to have higher IQs.” He concludes: “The tide is turning—life underwriters would be wise to be at the front end of this curve, and not stubbornly digging in their heels to the detriment of their products.”
For now, at least, life insurers are still holding the line on pot smoke as a vice on par with cigarettes. But it’s a testament to how far the legalization movement has grown beyond its hippie roots that even the actuaries are starting to fall in line.
