Revenue From Marijuana If It Were Legal

Why are we still having this conversation?

Nearly three-quarters-of-a-century after it was made illegal; half-a-century after it was proven to be practically harmless – why is it still a crime to possess and smoke marijuana?

Here is a list of ten famous people who died as a result of nicotine abuse:

Humphrey Bogart
Edward R. Murrow
Nat King Cole
George Harrison
John Huston
Noel Coward
Betty Grable
Walt Disney
Gary Cooper
Peter Jennings

Here is another list. Ten famous people who died from alcoholism:

Billie Holiday
Jack Kerouac
Truman Capote
Lorenz Hart
Veronica Lake
Bix Beiderbecke
Montgomery Clift
Dylan Thomas
John Barrymore
Errol Flynn

Now I’m going to ask you to name for me one celebrity who has died from too much grass.

Go on, I’m waiting. Is it a “gateway drug” as they never tire of reminding us? Yeah, it probably is. But so is Pabst Blue Ribbon. Let’s get a grip here.

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

Yeah go mj. Yur almost here.

while i fully support the legalization of marijuana, i enjoy smoking it and i have been on the recieving end of prohibition and now have a record because of it; i still have a differing opinion of what legalization will do. I doubt that the price will remain the same when it is legal, if anything the price will drop significantly. If apples were illegal they would most certainly be more expensive, and maybe more people would eat them…
With a legal market, people will have more choice where they buy their weed. Just like you can choose where you buy your liquor or cigarettes (except for cubans, but that’s just as stupid as marijuana prohibition). After all it’s just a weed.

Marijuana is an easy bust for cops; weed smokers are, for the most part, peaceful people. There were more people arrested in New York city this year than any time in the past. Easy money for the city. Arresting dangerous armed gangsters is a lot tougher and doesn’t pay. Go figure.

More people are killed as a result of fast food diets than the use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco combined every year. FACT!

Heart disease and obesity account for more deaths than any of them! But, will the government attack this great killer? NO! Because they make too many taxes off of them!

They should take a leaf from their own book with regard to legalisation as well. For a capilatist country, we don’t seem to have a grasp on that one.

For those not in the know, marijuana (or hemp as it is more appropriately known) was criminalised not because of the drug but because as a textile the rich (senators, congressman, etc) nearly got their cotton businesses put out of action.

I wish infographics and articles like these made a better argument for decriminalization that consisted of more than ‘Jeez, look how much money we could save.’ There are no distinctions in the graphic above which make marijuana seem any different than other drugs or arguing how arrests for possession of marijuana is overkill and counterproductive. Just for a cognitive dissonance argument, nobody–well no rational person–advocates the legalization of heroin, cocaine, or methamphetamines, but we would sure save a ton of money if we did. Hell if all crimes were taken off the books, just think how much we could save! This chart assumes that everyone viewing it already agrees with the premise, but that’s not how arguments are won.

As a UCSB graduate, avid surfer, and self-declared political junkie, I completely agree with marijuana decriminalization. I just wish these kind of articles demonstrated how legalization would make crime go down, not by subtracting the number of marijuana arrests/convictions, but by noting how many deaths could be avoided by the absence of drug smuggling since a legalized pot industry would 1) not require bootleggers or drug cartels and 2) nearly all of the production would take place in the United States, if not within 100 miles of your home. All legal, all safe, no drug dealers, no cartels.

Finally, the costs to society of marijuana use, or rather lack thereof, should be clearly marked on a graphic such as this, with charts comparing it to other illegal drugs and some legalized substances like alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. How many deaths are caused per year by pot? How about alcohol? Guns? Automobiles? Fast food? (FYI, on average eighty-six people were killed every single day by firearms in 2009 according to the CDC, not to mention the 183 wounded.) The case to legalize anything must explain why it should not be illegal, in addition to ancillary benefits of decriminalization like tax revenues and law enforcement savings.