Elliott

What would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?

For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children's Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost -- and there'd still be $35 billion left over.

Or perhaps you'd hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.

Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what's left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.

Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country -- $560 for a family of four.

The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.

Why $42 billion? Because that's what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. -- $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.

That's like arresting every man, woman and child in the state of North Dakota plus every man, woman, and child in Des Moines, Iowa on marijuana charges ... every year. Arrests for marijuana possession -- not sales or trafficking, just possession -- totaled 738,916. By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined.

Basing his calculations mainly on U.S. government statistics, Gettman concludes that marijuana in the U.S. is a $113 billion dollar business. That's a huge chunk of economic activity that is unregulated and untaxed because it's almost entirely off the books.

Of course, the cost of our marijuana laws goes far beyond lost tax revenues and money spent on law enforcement. By consigning a very popular product -- one that's been used by about 100 million Americans, according to government surveys -- to the criminal underground, we've effectively cut legitimate businesspeople out of the market and handed a monopoly to criminals and gangs.

Strangely, government officials love to warn us that some unsavory characters profit off of marijuana sales, while ignoring the obvious: Our prohibitionist laws handed them the marijuana business in the first place, effectively giving marijuana dealers a $113 billion free ride.

All this might make some sense if marijuana were so terribly dangerous that it needed to be banned at all costs, but science long ago came to precisely the opposite conclusion. Compared to alcohol, for example, marijuana is astonishingly safe. For one thing, marijuana is much less addictive than alcohol, with just nine percent of users becoming dependent, as opposed to 15 percent for booze. And marijuana is much less toxic. Heavy drinking is well-documented to damage the brain and liver, and to increase the risk of many types of cancer. Marijuana, on the other hand, has never caused a medically documented overdose death, and scientists are still debating whether even heavy marijuana use causes any permanent harm at all. And then there's violence. Again, the scientific findings are overwhelming: Booze incites violence and aggression; marijuana doesn't.

Despite all that, we now arrest one American every 38 seconds on marijuana charges. And we do so at a staggering cost in law enforcement expenses, lost tax revenues, and staggering profits for criminal gangs.

The alternative is clear: Regulate marijuana just as we do beer, wine, and liquor. The only thing lacking is the political will.

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CosmicRocker

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Traveling Wilburys (l to r)

Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison
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sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
when you got to choose
every way you look at it you lose

Mrs. Robinson - Simon and Garfunkle

Dawnling

wasting money disgusts me

SaraW

I agree that marijuana should be decriminalized for all those reasons.

What is especially ludicrous is that industrial hemp, which is less than 1% THC, is also illegal. Hemp is used to make paper and cloth, among other things. Hemp seed is also a good source of protein. The DEA destroys more hemp every year than it does other varieties of marijuana. From NORML:

Kanadesaga

Marijuana laws are a throwback to the prohibition era and are inherently racist, just like current crack v. powder cocaine laws. what people don't get is that with all the evidence at hand, the governemnt wants to keep pot illegal for several reasons; 1) it allows them to keep a database on "subversive" persons. 2) it keeps the profit centers of prisons supplied with a constant source of inmates. 3) it allows the givernment to seize the personal property of those arrested. 4) it allows another intrusion into the personal lives of its citizens.

Jonesy

The weird thing about drugs is what they're really for. They teach us things and we can use them constructively. The main problem is we haven't figured out how to use them properly. For example, if you shoot heroin and just sit around enjoying it, you're not doing it right. If you shoot heroin and play basketball, it is possible you will get significantly better at playing basketball during a single heroin/basketball session. This is because heroin is highly addictive. The addiction is essentially something you've grown in your brain. It would be like if shooting heroin into a plant caused the plant to grow significantly faster than it normally would. The only hitch might be... the plant will wither as quickly as it grew.

If used right, heroin could allow you to make significant progress in a field very quickly, but the progress will only last for a short period of time. Of course, this is hypothetical. I have not tested this theory in any way. But, the point remains - we simply do not understand drugs. One day, the anti-drug people will be some of the most reviled people in history.

Pleasure is not a goal. It is a guide.

Gaia

And there you have it! In a nutshell!

I don't know how it is where you are, but here they charge $18 a day, for being incarcerated.

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The present moment is a powerful goddess.
~ Goethe

Gaia

I knew this WAY before Bill Maher said it:

All Drugs are Poison.

And I personally do not consider Marijuana to be a Drug, comparable to Heroin et al. JMO

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The present moment is a powerful goddess.
~ Goethe

Kanadesaga

NO, they'll be after cheney and his merry band of criminals.

Jonesy

Love is a lot like heroin. When you find love, this normally dormant chemical releases into the brain. It changes the environment in such a way, your plants and trees can grow fast (because of addiction), and strong. First, your garden will grow quickly, then it will reach a max-height of sorts; after the growth period, the garden is strengthened (somewhat like a tree strengthening its bark). Just like with heroin, losing love is very painful, because all the growth then atrophies. It hurts so much at first because of how quickly the growth atrophies. It hurts in the long-term because you lose your forest and go back to having a few small trees and plants.