Posted on 04/20/2007 5:56:08 AM PDT by tang0r
Jeffery A. Miron finds that by decriminalizing cannabis, the federal government would generate $2.4 billion in federal tax revenue annually, and that an additional $7.7 billion would be saved as the cost of incarceration, policing, and processing offenders. Now, that's too much money to for the human brain to fully conceptualize, given the air quality around April 20th, so your friends at the Prometheus Institute have provided this handy quantitive index in order show exactly how much the U.S. can earn each year from cannabis decriminalization. The math: $2.4 billion per year + $7.7 billion per year = $10.1 billion gained in total per year. You're welcome.
The $10.1 billion dollars could, for those who are interested, do any of the following:
• Subsidize a school voucher system for half of the U.S., for good reason • Build three nuclear reactors, because Greenpeace will be high and won't notice • Extend health insurance to one million uninsured Americans, and doesn't that make everyone happy? • Purchase eight Stealth Bombers, or 2 Minitz class aircraft carriers, because we can
(Excerpt) Read more at prometheusinstitute.net ...
It's even harder when you are stoned.
I’m having a lot of trouble choosing between the B-2’s and the aircraft carriers, although I’m leaning towards the carriers.
More short term memory loss.
Did they figure in the cost of drug rehab increased crime from dead heads etc?
Never fly. too many politicians and cops are profiting from the “Bonus System” of drug money.
That, and the fact that the so-called "war on drugs" enables the federal government to exert more and more influence and control of police activities down to the smallest local level.
The ugly truth is that the "war on drugs" isn't about keeping the public safe, or promoting health, or any other tired platitude -- it's about CONTROL, plain and simple.
Someone who is stoned or impaired in some other form should only be prosecuted if they pose a threat to others. These prosecutions can happen under existing laws. If someone wants to get stoned just for the sake of getting stoned and they do not pose a threat to others in the process, that should be nobody's business but their own. If such a person puts his/her own job at risk by doing that... well tough!
If we took even half of the resources we waste every second on the War on Drugs (which we WILL never win), we could significantly reduce real crime in this country.
dudes...what about anti-smoking laws ?
you sell me marijuana but wont let me take a toke ?
bummer.
About the same amount owed by IRS employees who refuse to file tax forms.
Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit paranoid?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSH6ofHbeUw
You can't have a very good tailgate party on a B2. But on a Nimitz you can have that and the football game, too.
How?
Marijuana can be grown in virtually every state, either indoors or outdoors. Those who use pot will prefer to buy it through home grown sources rather than subsidize the government by buying government packaged joints.
Thus they are setting up the need for an enforcement agency to go after the backyarder's. Is this cost deducted from the 2.4 Billion?
Bingo.
It'll never happen folks. Too much power and money flowing into the hands of too many people.
Right. Will anyone be working a full brain capacity?
That's an already-existing cost. There is no evidence that illegal drug use would go up, as mainly those who want to use are using anyway right now.
Crime by definition would go down, as you've now defined things as not being a crime. But the peripheral crimes of those criminals would go down because they are no longer criminals. For example, they don't have to launder money anymore. Also, prices would go down even with taxation, reducing crimes committed to get money for drugs.
Many people are making obscene amounts of money by keeping marijuana illegal - always follow the money trail - and you will see very many hypocrites.
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