There is no denying that there are problems with the marijuana laws currently in place in the United States. Left and right, there are people using marijuana with blatant disregard to the fact that it is, in fact, prohibited. The black market for marijuana is surging out of control. As a result of this, drug-related street crimes have become more prevalent, which, in turn, has increased the number of offenders in prison for those crimes. This is very costly to the United States government. Also, there are personal dangers involved with buying drugs on the black market. By legalizing marijuana, the government could help solve the problems caused by the laws that are currently in place. Several effects of marijuana prohibition have to do with the economy; improving our economic state would be a major benefit of marijuana legalization. First of all, illegal sales of marijuana are booming. According to an article on Cedro-uva.org, people often pay over eight dollars a gram for the drug, spending approximately nine billion dollars each year (Harrison)! Most of these costs are solely due to dealer inflation. Drugs are often purchased and resold multiple times, their prices increasing with each sale. Dealers sell their product for hundreds of times the production costs, making huge personal profits with each sale. This money then leaves the economic system and ends up instead in the dealers’ pockets. Having less money circulating in the economy places strain on the system. In this way, illegal sales of marijuana are directly contributing to the economic deficit in which our country is currently finding itself. If marijuana were made legal, the government could tax it highly, which would raise billions of dollars in revenue that could... ... middle of paper ... ...edro-uva.org/lib/harrison.cannabis.04.html>. Henningfield, Jack E. "Addictive Properties of Popular Drugs." Drug War Facts. 2 Aug. 1994. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. . "NIDA InfoFacts: Marijuana.” National Institute of Drug Abuse, Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. . "Marijuana Use and Its Effects." WebMD - Better Information. Better Health. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. . Messerli, Joe. "Should Marijuana Be Legalized under Any Circumstances?" BalancedPolitics.org. 6 Aug. 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. . Thomas, Chuck. “Marijuana Arrest and Incarceration in the United States.” Ron Mullins For United States Senate (D). Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .
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In the last fiscal year alone, marijuana brought 70 million dollars in tax revenue in the state of Colorado. Colorado was the first state to legalize marijuana recreationally in the fall of 2012, and since then three other states and the District of Columbia have legalized the plant. Based off of sales in states that have legalized marijuana recreationally, if all fifty states legalized marijuana, they would bring in a combined 3 billion dollars in tax revenue yearly. That much money from sales of the plant alone could help to stabilize the suffering economy. Moreover, the American Government would be able to control the plant and distribute it how ever they see fit. The economic growth marijuana legalization could bring to the United States outweighs any argument against
The legalization of marijuana has the potential to bring our economy back to life if it were to be legalized. There are a number of ways in which legalization could improve the economy. We could use the revenue from taxes on marijuana to provide for a better quality of life for Americans in need. Legalizing marijuana would also save us money by cutting the cost of putting someone in jail for harmless marijuana related charges that waste tax money. Also it would put more money into circulation by keeping the profits off the black market and into the legal and taxed market. With an estimated twenty-five million active marijuana smokers in America that consume nearly thirty-one million pounds of marijuana each year, we are missing out on extreme revenue that this country cannot afford to go without for much longer (Krulick).
Cox, Lauren. "Medical Marijuana: Benefits vs. Risks." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 05 Nov. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. .
Let’s begin with US revenue gain that would occur from legalizing marijuana. Marijuana Offers Extreme US revenue boost in several different ways. Shouldn’t we want to collect revenue due to taxation other then criminalization? Marijuana is too expensive for our justice system and should inst...
...ket where marijuana or other illegal drugs were to be legal the economy would have a major boost. According to we are the drug policy alliance “Legalizing and regulating marijuana will bring the nation's largest cash crop under the rule of law, creating jobs and economic opportunities in the formal economy instead of the illicit market.” For example if producers are making more (legal) drugs that are good quality that are inspected by professionals of course buyers willingness to pay for good quality legal drug will increase, producers will have money to make more supplies and pay taxes to government. Furthermore the crime rate would decrease since people are not likely to rob other individuals for their drugs, selling drugs would be legal and not a crime, and jails would be less full of drug criminals meaning less of tax payer’s money will go to the prison system
Pierce, A. (2014, March 17). Medical marijuana Archives - The Stoner's Journal. The Stoners Journal. Retrieved May 17, 2014, from http://www.stonersjournal.com/tag/medical-marijuana/
In conclusion The Legalization of Marijuana would benefit the U.S government and it would be more effective in controlling the drug usage. The prohibition of Marijuana has only been costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year and it hasn’t benefited the Economy. The Education and treatment would be the effective way to address Marijuana problems, whereas The Legalization of Marijuana would benefit and boost our economy especially during this economic recession; therefore the Legalization of Marijuana may be the beginning United States Economy re-form; due to the fact that Marijuana Legalization would help subsidize our Economy.
...houses and paraphernalia stores. Establishments like these would create more jobs and increase industry sales thereby creating more revenue. Opponents may argue that marijuana legalization will create large health problems. The fact of the matter is that the amount of revenue brought in from marijuana will more then cover the costs of addiction and any other health problems. Opponents may also argue that regulating the sale and distribution of marijuana would be too difficult. Marijuana regulation would be very similar to that of alcohol and tobacco. These have proved to be very strong and worthwhile economic benefactors to the United States. The numbers provided above prove that legalized marijuana would be a very welcomed addition to our economy.
First of all, marijuana can have many positive effects on crime. Legalizing marijuana can actually decrease crime rates in the U.S. This past year, it was counted that 6.9 million people are inside the American’s jails and prisons. 60,000 of these individuals were there for marijuana according to one study. With the legalization of marijuana, it would cut the amount of tax we pay for these jails and prisons, costing us a total of 1.2 billion. Last year a total of 7 to 10 billion dollars was used towards arresting and processing against marijuana. The big picture here is that 90% of those arrests were just for possession. It is crazy that as a country we spend most of our time trying to stop the biggest drug in America when it is just wasting our money. There are less arrests on violent crimes than marijuana charges combined. These “violent crimes” consist of assault, rape, robbery, and murder. How awful is it that we waste our time on this drug when there are so many other bigger problems we could be solving or people to be saved. Cocaine and heroin arrests have actually decreased by 1/3 from 1991 to 2000. While marijuana has more than 700,000 people are ar...
Legalizing marijuana would not only reduce the drug wars, but it would also help the economy