How much taxpayer money is spent annually on the illegalization of marijuana?
in investigation, enforcement, and imprisonment?
(also including border control issues that stem directly from its illegalization)
vs. how much marijuana is seized/taken off the streets each year due to these efforts?
I’m wondering what the weight/$ ratio might be, essentially what taxpayers pay per pound taken out of circulation, basically
for example – if law enforcement per year is $500 million dollars, and it takes 1 million pounds off the street, it would be equivalent to about $480 per pound, which then increases incrementally as more are imprisoned per year
but I’m trying to get some estimates
thanks!
Alan S you’re confusing marji with hemp – both related, both illegal – but marji is for recreational use, hemp is for industrial use – and neither holds the others’ qualities of use- i.e. marji doesn’t make good fibers, ethanol etc; but likewise hemp doesn’t get you high
…but you’ve got it just about right, in essence
that money is more than made up for in fines and costs of probation
A report was done by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University.
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.
If it were legalized and taxed, “Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.”
it’s billions, because half of federal prisoners are in jail for non-violent drug crimes, and many of there are there for marijuana.
the same is true for california and many other states.
very good case to legalize it. pay $0.00 to combat it, collect taxes on the bud, collect taxes on the fiber while it employs American citizens in the textile market, collect taxes on the ethanol you can make from this extremely high cellulose producer and put American farmers to work while creating a new energy production industry. On 6% of America’s land mass we can produce enough ethanol and bio-diesel to completely feed our energy hunger and we have virtually no climatic restriction on where we can grow it.