[microgood]

You say illegal pot provides welfare to government employees, but you can't show me any "welfare" savings if we legalize it. What's your point?

684,000 people were arrested in 2004 for possession of marijuana alone, and another 87,000 for dealing in it, more than for all violent crimes. 40% of all arrests are drug related. I would expect the need for police and prisons would decline significantly if marijuana was legalized.

In Washington state the King County Sheriff, who is pretty conservative, became a representative and wrote an article complaining that the Bush Administration was cutting funds for meth lab eradication because they wanted to put more emphasis on marijuana, which they believe is more dangerous than Meth.

Also, if you watch the LEAP video, the New Jersey cops say that before the Nixon drug war his department had 7 officers dealing with drugs in that department and it immediately went to 76 when the drug war started, an increase of 1000%. Back then, if you passed a joint to a cop it was considered dealing, and you could get 7 years.

In Washington state, you have to get arrested 7 times to do time for car theft, so even if they did not reduce the prisons, they might have room for the real criminals around us.

[robertpaulsen]

"I would expect the need for police and prisons would decline significantly if marijuana was legalized."

Unless, as you said later in your post, we would use those resources to go after the "real" criminals.

So, which is it? Will we actually fire people and close prisons or will we maintain the same number of government employees?