Marijuana’s legalization could earn billions of dollars for the government that could be used to lower the national debt, improve schools, or other major projects that need funding.
The handling of drugs is not safe, whether it is the back alley deals, or the people killed in drug heists. Since 2006 more than seventy thousand people have been estimated to have died in the drug war. This all comes from the lack of supervision in handling of drugs with their distribution, and use. Problems most people illegal drug users face are the quality of the drugs they purchase. Often people lace drugs with other ingredients to either improve or alter their effects. Sometimes suppliers lace drugs with substitute products to spread out into more units
…show more content…
Once situation that is a major cause for concern is the underground dealings between drug lords and law enforcement, this may include bribes. This is not a perfect world, and law enforcement officers are not saints. They can be bribed and in situations where a drug cartel has a major influence in that region, the law enforcement has most likely been paid off. There is no scenario worse for a citizen in that area than lack of protection against drug lords. Racism plays a major role in the drug war as well. “Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites .“ “Proportion of people incarcerated for a drug offense in state prison that are black or Hispanic, 61 percent” (“Drug War Statistics”). This alarming statistic is an issue that must be dealt with. Minorities are being mistreated with regards to drug law violations, and this is not acceptable in today’s society. It should be noted the main concern over marijuana legalization are ethics and morals. Many people against legalization fear marijuana will corrupt youth, some feel it may be too large to enforce. One proposed idea to combat this problem is to enact the legalization for individuals over the age of twenty one, similar to alcohol. They would purchase marijuana using their state identification, however unlike alcohol, every
Drug policy is a crucial topic in the country today. Substance abuse, as well as drug-related crime rates, are a huge problem. This is a fact. The way to fix the problem of substance abuse, however, is widely disagreed upon. Some think that stricter laws regarding drug possession and use would solve the problem, while others believe that loosening the restrictions would be a better option. The issue of legalizing drugs, especially marijuana, is one that is debated all the time. In fact, in 1995, a survey was conducted on the most important policy issues and eighty five percent of the country placed drugs at the top of the list (Falco 1996). Many states are actually beginning to decriminalize, and even
Need a quick fix to the current economic crisis? How about opening thousands of marijuana dispensaries, supplying tens of thousands of Americans with jobs, and bringing in billions of tax dollars to the government. Is marijuana a threat to our society and our youth? Or is it a plant, capable of easing the pain of the sick, inhibit the growth of cancer cells, rejuvenating the weary, and bringing ease to our stressful lives. The war on drugs has been a failure and it affects us all! The current cost of the war on drugs is 51 billion dollars annually and not only has marijuana use risen but it has become cheaper and easier to get. A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center stated that 48% of adults in America have tried marijuana and 40% had done so in the past three years. Legalizing marijuana would benefit the country in many ways.
The United States can spread the tax dollar generated by marijuana to fund a universal public care system. Marijuana is a renewable resource that can help us prevent global warning. It can create an agriculture spike in demand for labor, this allow more job immigration. The U.S. Is one of the leading nations that benefiting from marijuana? There is no correlation between medical marijuana and social reduce crimes.
The United States has, in some states, legalized the use of marijuana. Studies done have shown that it helps the state economies grow, and has given the states millions of dollars in tax revenue. So imagine the money that would be saved if marijuana were legalized in the whole country. The United States would benefit from a stronger economy, increased jobs, reduced prison costs, lower medicinal marijuana prices, and the availability of medical marijuana to the people who need it.
Taxing marijuana would be an asset to this country’s economy by helping them with the debts, rebuilding schools, and lowering crime rates. According to Matt Ferner of the Huffington Post, since Colorado legalized marijuana the state has made $600 million in combined wholesale and retail sales (Ferner). This can be great because the United States could pay off much of its debts. That amount of money was earned through a 25 percent tax on retail purchasing, including a 15 percent excise tax, and a 10 percent sales tax (Ferner). Another asset of taxing marijuana is that the government can give some of the money to the public. Some of this money can go to schools, hospitals, and medical treatments. The rest can go to creating new
For the sake of building off the previous entry, I would like to incorporate a couple of marijuana related legal statistics from Steven Nelson’s article Police Made One Marijuana Arrest Every 42 Seconds in 2012. The Federal Bureau of Investigation released data on the crime figures for drug-related crimes in 2012 and it showed that a staggering 749,825 people were arrested for marijuana related offenses; that is one arrest every 42 seconds. It also accounted for 48.3 percent of all drug arrests. Even with the recent upsurge in public support for the liberation of the drug policy, police arrested the same number of people in 2012 on pot-related charges as they did in 2011. These numbers have led many people to begin forming advocacy groups geared to decriminalize the drug. Dan Riffle, the director of
This tax revenue could fund the environment. Also, opening of new schools and supporting current ones. Furthermore, it could enhance the building of new roads. It could also help create hospitals and clinics. Moreover, the tax revenue could help build new police stations, and firefighting stations. It could even help the homeless. Marijuana could also bring jobs to America. In fact, it could bring thousands of new job opportunities which will reduce our unemployment rate.
This increased government revenue could be seen as a major advantage in legalising marijuana where revenue could be used for increase expenditure in defence, education and health.
After so many years, America still finds itself fighting a well-known and highly demonized "enemy". The enemy is not terrorism. It's an "enemy" that many Americans have dealt with face to face. This enemy is illegal drugs, marijuana in particular. Marijuana is the most widely used and criminalized drug in the United States. This highly sought after resource yields a black market price tag that creates a street economy all its' own. This is Marijuana by itself, it and all the other illegal drugs together combine to form the third largest economy in the world. This is because the demand for illegal drugs is so high. There can be benefits to a legalized drug trade that is certain. The following paper will defend that some uses of
To explore the economic benefits of marijuana legalization we must first look at the amount of marijuana that is purchased by users. The White House Office of National Drug Policy reported that between 1988 and 1995, Americans spent about 7 billion dollars on the illegal substance, averaging about a billion dollars a year (Prislac, 2009). This means that annually there is a billion dollars out there that is subject to no sales tax. The national average for sales tax is 5%, so if you calculate the billion dollars being spent on marijuana, this means there is approximately 50 million dollars in sales tax that our government never gets
The government set aside thirteen point seven billion dollars for the 2008 war on drugs and the Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that Americans will spend ten point five billion for marijuana this year (Dubbin, 2008). That is twenty four point two billion dollars that could have been used by the government for other things. According to Harvard Economic professor Jeffrey A. Miron, “legalizing marijuana would save seven point seven billion a year in government expenditures and add six point two billion in revenue if the wacky tabacci were taxed like regular tobacco.”
Drugs like marijuana might end the costly war between legalizing drugs or not. There is estimation that legalizing the most influential drug marijuana or other drugs would save the government. Drugs would be such a good business for the government because approximately $41.3 billion in savings, $8.7 billion on legalizing marijuana, and $32.6 billion from the legalization of other drugs, like cocaine and heroin. Those savings of savings $25.7 billion would go to state and local governments. This bad because it’s going to make it easier for
If decriminalized users could obtain their marijuana at government regulated prices (Incardi 285). Money that the government cultivated from the selling of marijuana, the money they saved from reducing the war on drugs to hurtful drugs like cocaine and heroin, and the money saved from not housing so many inmates every year is much needed.
This new market could provide a new source of revenue for the government to spend on other important projects such as healthcare or education. In the state of Colorado alone nearly generated $200 million in sales revenue in 2016. (3 Arguments for and Against Legalizing Marijuana,2017). If weed was legalized this could allow the government to use the new money on improving healthcare, education etc..
will boost income to fund projects, such as new parks and road repairs” (“19 Primary Pros and