A majority of Americans, including most Republicans and Republican-leaning individuals, support the legalization of marijuana, motivated by prohibition’s racialized enforcement and the economic, social, and medical benefits of legalization. However, American political institutions have vehemently opposed proposed relaxations of marijuana restrictions. This move is greatly influenced by the power of utilitarianism in conventional decision-making calculus. However, utilitarianism unjustly imposes personal beliefs of success and happiness over the entire population, is inadequate to take moral and ethical considerations into account, and, writ large, fuels bad policy decisions. Using marijuana legalization as a case study to examine the failures of utilitarianism highlights its inadequacies more broadly and suggests new paths toward ethical policymaking.