Marijuana legalization would reduce government costs and raise tax revenues, but opponents still worry over health and social issues. State governments facing massive financial debts might consider a rather unusual way to collect those debts through the legalization of drugs like marijuana and thereby ending the costly drug war. A study from the Cato Institute conduct by Jeffrey A. Miron, senior lecturer on economics at Harvard University, and Katherine Waldock, professor of economics at New York University, she estimates that legalizing marijuana would save the federal government approximately $41.3 billion annually on expenditures related to the enforcement of prohibition. Of those savings, $25.7 billion would givien to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would given to the federal government.Miron and Waldock estimate that of that $41.3 billion in savings, about $8.7 billion would result from the legalization of marijuana alone. Marijuana legalization would translate into higher tax revenues generated by the sale of these newly-legalized products (ex. e-cigaters ) in the open commercial marketplace. Drug legalization would generate tax revenues of $46.7 billion annually, assuming legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco, they said. Approximately $8.7 billion of this revenue would result from the legalization of marijuana, $38.1 billion from legalizing all the other drugs. “Legalization would reduce state and federal deficits by eliminating cost on law enforcement arrests, prosecutions, and incarceration and by allowing governments to collect tax revenue on legalized sales,also it will bring the incarceration rate down”. Miron and Waldock said that “marijuana is already believed to be the United States number one cash crop, exceeding the total value of wheat and corn”. Weed is also the leading cash crop in at least a dozen states, including California and Colorado.The potential financial gains to be realized through the legalization of drugs would be of particular interest to the state of California, which not only it goes agaisnt with thousands of (illegal) marijuana growers, but whose state government also faces a budget shortfall of nearly $20-billion for fiscal 2012. According to a CNNmoney report In November of 2010, California voters voted for a ballot initiative Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana in the state. A similar law in 1996, California had passed a law to legalize medical marijuana). According to multiple newspapers sites, supporters of the California proposition 19 estimate that about $15-billion worth of marijuana is sold every year in the state, and state tax on the retail sales of marijuana would likely raise at least $1.3 billion a year in revenue.“Since California measure pass and generate the more then expwcted budgetary savings, other states would likely follow suit,” Miron and Waldock said. They also found that the legalization would produce far more cost savings than less decriminalization which would make appealing criminal penalties against simple possession, but retaining them against such acts as drug smuggling and selling. The financial impact of legalization would exceed those of decriminalization for three reasons, Miron and Waldock stated. “First, legalization eliminates arrests for drug trafficking in addition to arrests for simple possession , Second, legalization saves prosecutorial, judicial, and incarceration expenses these savings are less in the case of decriminalization. Third, legalization allows taxation of drug production and sale.”
AuthorGreetings my name is Christopher Renteria. I am from Los Angeles, California. I am 17 years old. I am a high school student. I am going to join the army after high school. I am gradating from high school on June 12, 2015. My political views pro-Democratic. This blog is in no way bias. I relay strictly on facts. ArchivesCategories |