That’s just one of the financial benefits that would potentially follow the legalization of marijuana. The government could also save about $20 Billion a year. That billion, with a b.
Marijuana prohibition now costs state and federal government as much as $20 billion a year, an economist told The Huffington Post — and legalization efforts are only just beginning to chip away at that.
That number comes from Jeffrey Miron, a senior lecturer at Harvard University who in 2010 studied the likely impacts of drug legalization, finding that about $8.7 billion would be saved on law enforcement and another $8.7 billion would be generated from taxes on marijuana. Accounting for inflation, that would add up to about $20 billion now, he said.
But can we talk about all of the state races and ballot initiatives that went down last night? I feel like America just hit some kind of tipping point into good sense last night.
Apparently, just some regular-ass weed turned him into a zombie!!
This is truly the saddest day of the year. When Michael Jackson’s tiger died of lung cancer, I was sure this week couldn’t get any worse. Oh how wrong I was.
Darlene Mayes, 73-Year-Old, Sold Pot And Had Illegal Guns In Oklahoma, Cops Say The Huffington Post | By Andy Campbell
This granny’s ganja wasn’t for glaucoma — turns out she might have been the biggest pot dealer in town.
When cops kicked down the door of an elderly woman’s Oklahoma home on Monday, they said they knew they’d find some marijuana. What they didn’t expect was that 73-year-old Darlene Mayes was packing 4 pounds of pot, $276,000 in cash, a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver, The Daily reported.
Ron Paul on America’s War on Drugs (via TowleRoad)
Really the only time I ever agree wholeheartedly with any Republican on anything is when Ron Paul talks common damned sense about drugs. Our silly little war on drugs has done nothing but make drugs more exciting to potential users by making them illegal, put lots of brown men in jail for inordinately long prison sentences, and drain money from the federal government. And it’s not like it stops people from doing drugs.
Hand to god it is easier to go to the East Village and find someone with weed than to find someone with an extra cigarette. I can’t count how many friends I have who would never smoke a cigarette but spark some some mary-j like it ain’t no thang.
Alcohol really does kill way more people and we see all the time what other nasty side effects it has. You find me somebody high as kite on marijuana who turns into a violent person destroying property or an aggressive bar fighter or a rapist. That’s all booze. Weed people are just trynna eat snacks and have profound conversations.
Weed could be less than a dollar an ounce.
