sigh I get tired of the same old arguments over and over.
according to a report by National Public Radio’s John Burnett on the April 20 broadcast
really???
With a federal government that is on track to be running $1-trillion deficits
We should be saving every last penny we can.
One thing that is often overlooked in the recent string of media coverage about marijuana legalization is what would happen to the market if it were a legal drug. The revenue-generating potential would be greatly reduced if it were legal to be grown anywhere.
Who says it should be legal to grow anywhere? To insure quality, disrupt the black market and insure legitimacy of the supply it should be strictly controlled, and only allowed with a license.
Sure there will be a few people who will be hobby growers, but it will not be everyone, most will find it much easier just to drive down the road and buy some instead of dealing with doting over a crop in hopes that it will have a good quality yield.
This will be minimal, just as the number people who currently run their own still is minimal. If you are growing unlicensed, then you are subject to heavy penalties for tax evasion, just as is the case now for illicit stills.
Truth Detector said:
Anyone who thinks similar costs reflected in alcohol abuse won’t also translate over to legal pot use is wallowing in denial. While the health related costs may be much less, the other associated costs are valid arguments to NOT legalizing this drug; and it is a "drug."
as for the costs presented from the NIDA.. many can be written off as the cost of prohibition, not the costs of the drugs themselves. The rest will be there regardless of legality.
Let's look at the breakdown:
Total healthcare expenditures from drugs: $9,931 billion
This is a cost that is there prior to legalization, and one that will be there post legalization, irrelevant (unless you are prepared to provide solid evidence that there will be a substantial increase in usage that contradicts the data that says otherwise).
Premature death from drugs: $14,575 billion
dunno how you are supposed to put a dollar4 amount on the costs of death, but there it is. Of course these deaths will be almost entirely deaths outside of marijuana, unless they decide to attribute any deaths that occur with mj present in the system as being caused by mj. The drug itself does not kill.
regardless even if we were to legalize ALL drugs this number will decrease. No more overdoses from a bad batch, substantial decrease in HIV, and many more. and again if you want to argue otherwise as a result of increased usage you need to overcome the growing body of evidence that there is no significant correlation between legality and usage.
ok moving on..
impaired productivity from drugs: $14.2 billion
again a cost borne regardless of legality (unless as is likely they are counting time in jail as loss of productivity).
institutionalized populations and incarceration:
19.4 billion
this is not a cost of drugs, this is a cost of the war on drugs.
Crime careers: $19.2 billion
included in this number is guess what.. drug dealing (that goes away). All you will be left with is theft and prostitution, both costs that are there independent of whether drugs are legal or not, and in all liklihood both of these will decrease.
then add in another $20 billion for victims of crime, and crime (dunno how crime manages to get counted 3 times)
Then of course there is the ~$20 billion year for the ONDCP budget.
in a nutshell the costs you cite are one of 2 categories
1) costs that will be there regardless of legality (including a few that will likely decrease)
2) costs that are the cost of the war on drugs, and not the cost of the drugs themselves.
the latter will all go away.
but of course as you pointed out in the beginning of your argument (before it became beneficial to bolster your position) that these are all drops in the bucket compared to a trillion dollar deficit.
