Have you been keeping tabs on the War on Drugs? The (local) government gets their cut in the form of Fed. tax dollars.
So you're saying people will switch from alcohol to marijuana? Now why would they do that? People are going to take up smoking? They'll throw away the Glenlivet and grab some Acapulco Gold?
A lot of rednecks I know would switch from alcohol to marijuana in a heartbeat if it were legalized.
A lot of rednecks I know would switch from alcohol to marijuana in a heartbeat if it were legalized.
Why would they do that??? Why wouldn't they? In every historical case known, sea changes in the law cause sea changes in usage. And we have contemporary statistics to draw from in Switzerland, Jamaica, and Denmark, amongst others. The safety factor alone would be plenty enough reason for a rational user to substitute marijuana from alcohol. At the end of the Great Prohibition, the single most notable change in consumption was the return to wine and beer of the vast majority of the population, from the artificial popularity that Gin, burbon, Vodka, rotgut, and other hard liquers enjoyed because of prohibition. Lots of people factor safety considerations into their choice of recreational substances, even if the buzz per buck is of different sorts and intensities. Prohibition causes buzz per buck to be the primary economic consideration, because the only important costs to dealers are the cost of being caught--which makes delivering the most buzz per buck their most efficient leverage on their investment.
Which is spent on drug enforcement for ALL drugs, not just marijuana. Getting money for drug enforcement, hiring people to do drug enforcement, and then spending all the money you're given on drug enforcement is not what I call income.
Taxing drugs and putting that money in the general fund -- that's income.
"A lot of rednecks I know would switch from alcohol to marijuana in a heartbeat if it were legalized."
Sounds like a local thing and not something upon which to build a national policy. You don't happen to have any studies that show alcohol users would switch to marijuana, do you?