Posted on 04/24/2006 12:33:31 PM PDT by davesdude
Executive Summary
Government prohibition of marijuana is the subject of ongoing debate.
One issue in this debate is the effect of marijuana prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs and prevents taxation of marijuana production and sale.
This report examines the budgetary implications of legalizing marijuana – taxing and regulating it like other goods – in all fifty states and at the federal level.
The report estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $5.3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $2.4 billion would accrue to the federal government.
The report also estimates that marijuana legalization would yield tax revenue of $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like all other goods and $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.
Whether marijuana legalization is a desirable policy depends on many factors other than the budgetary impacts discussed here. But these impacts should be included in a rational debate about marijuana policy.
http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/mironreport.html
Good one!
Has anybody ever looked at the narco traffic website where it nails politicians complicit in it? Been sometime and a computer ago, but it should google right up IMHO and may be worth checking.
AFAIC - if the FedGov persists in it's WOD, why aren't every single public employee and legislator drug tested as std policy with random 3-4 month checkups? After all what's good for the goose.......
Unless there's a way the big drug companies can be assured the lion's share of profits from Marijuana, it'll never be legalized. People growing their own pot would eat into their (legal) drug sales as some folks may no longer need other drugs if they had marijuana.
The main argument for legalization is reducing government spending, right? I want to make sure that government spending will actually drop as a result of legalization. I don't want my tax dollars just redirected somewhere else.
NO! I wan't DEA disbanded and ATF moved back under revenue with all the hardware donated to the National Guard.
"The only thing prohibition has ever done is to create black markets operated by criminals and encourage the corruption of public officials.
It has never, never prevented people from doing what they are going to do."
To that, i challenge everyone to state the opposit!!!
Despite the fact that government profited far more from tobacco sales that "big tobacco" ever did.
Once again, the draw of legalization is decreasing government spending. Unless I can be certain that government spending will actually drop as a result of legalization, I have zero reason to support it. Therefore, get government out of the health care business first.
No, moronic comparison.
From the article: The report estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition.
Show me the study that predicts those costs exceeding the savings. Since those costs are being paid now to some extent, I know you can't do it. More brain dead warrior drivel.
Ummm, I think this article was about legalizing pot, not hard drugs.
More than I can count...
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
I was being sarcastic. I thought that would be obvious. Sorry.:)
No, not really.
If marijuana was legal, where would doped-up kids get the money for their habits? Probably via my car radio or my neighbors' garage full of tools. Hence, their tentative right to drugs is outweighed by the tenuous but still existant property rights.
that's the total debt.
I think the annual deficit is about $500 Billion.
This would knock it down to $480 billion. It's a start.
A billion here, a billion there; pretty soon we're talking real money... (I forget who said that about millions... Everett Dirksen?)
Show me the study that predicts those costs exceeding the savings.
Since the study that is the subject of this thread seems to favor legalizing drugs to reduce government expenditures, I'm very surprised that it doesn't take these increased costs into account. It only looked at money saved on enforcement, not additional money shelled out for health care. That's kind of an important variable. And no, I don't have a study showing that the increased health care expenses would overtake the savings on enforcement. I kind of thought that an austere study such as this one would have taken that into account. I'm really disappointed that it didn't.
Since those costs are being paid now to some extent, I know you can't do it.
That made no sense. How does something being paid already make it not possible to figure out a predicted increase or decrease in those expenses? Isn't that what this study does already, albeit exclusively with enforcement expenses?
More brain dead warrior drivel.
So being concerned about an increase in taxes resulting from a policy whose stated goal is to decrease taxes makes me a "brain dead warrior?" Yeah, I'm not even going to bother with this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.