If states were to legalize it already, Pelosi wouldn't need to call the House back in just to get aid to the states. You know...the bill with all the money for special interests like teachers and cops.
Of course, this line of argument is nothing new at all. Legalization advocates have been touting the savings to be had for years; hell, most of the info in this diary is from one I wrote a year ago. But the recent happenings with Congress reminded me of it if we have to continue dealing with fiscal crisis, we should bloody well work it, baybee!
Fortunately, election season is coming up and there are several states with either Medical Marijuana initiatives up for this fall and/or pending legislation: Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Dakota. In Oregon, we will be voting to allow medical dispensaries. And, of course, California is going the full monty with an initiative for straight-up legalization on the ballot this fall.
Find out what's going on in your state, including what the laws currently are. That way, you know which specific buttons to push in making your unassailable arguments. And let's face it, the arguments for legalization are pretty rock solid. Just ask Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. But I digress.
Why should states legalize it? Because prosecuting its possession and use is !@#$%& expensive. Just ask Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron, who authored a report titled "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition." It's got lots of fun info, such as a breakdown by state of how many millions are wasted on marijuana prosecution and these gems:
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.
So even at the low end of taxes, we're not far off from half off the state aid bill. That's an awful lot of education and police manhours saved! Most states are reporting prison overcrowding, too. Say it with me, everybody: "get non-violent drug offenders out of the prison system!" Everyone knows you get more bang for your buck out of rehab, but that's another diary for another day. Nobody goes to rehab over weed, anyway. I could go on and on and on about how it truly is effective as a medicine, or about how you'd have to smoke, like, literally a ton of it to kill yourself with it.
- This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.
6. By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.
7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana's LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.
8. At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.
So it can't kill you, it would make states a lot of money and it has valid, recognized medical uses. Why is it illegal, again? No good reason! Which is where we come in -- making the most of the budget problems to push the envelope on legalization! So if you live in those states lucky enough to have marijuana-related ballot initiatives this fall, please pull out all the stops between now and November. Write letters to the editor. Or here's a fun thing I did: take voter registration forms and some literature and distribute them at all the head shops in your town.
If you are not lucky enough to live in one of those states, start working your state legislators to review and revise your state's marijuana laws. Agitate, agitate, agitate! And letters to the editor are helpful there, too; the point is influencing opinion and very, very few people are going to argue against saving the state money, even if we're talking about the demon weed. The arguments for continued prohibition appear even less rational than usual when contrasted with immediate budget crises in education and police departments.
As much as I do enjoy the irony of that last bit -- that police could save their jobs by eschewing their jobs -- but this is serious business. Our failed war on drugs has done far more damage than the drugs themselves ever could and that's not even looking at the erosion of civil rights in its name. Enough! It's time for some sane drug policy, don't you think?