Should Marijuana be Legalized?
Experimenting with marijuana has long been a normal part of growing up
in the U.S. About half of the population born since 1960 has tried
the illegal drug by the age of 21 at least once.
According to government surveys, some 25 million Americans have smoked
marijuana in the past year, and more than 14 million do so regularly
despite harsh laws against its use and possession.
Nearly 100 million Americans admit having tried marijuana at least once,
That’s one third of everyone in this country. And that’s just those who
admitted it.
This admittance includes President Barak Obama and President Bill Clinton
(who claims he didn’t inhale… Yea, right).
Many successful business and professional leaders, including many state
and elected federal officials, admit they have smoked marijuana, including
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The vast majority of marijuana smokers like most other Americans,
are good citizens who work hard, raise families, pay taxes and contribute
in a positive way to their communities.
They are certainly not part of the violent crime problem in this country,
and it is terribly unjust to continue to treat them as hardened criminals.
Just imagine if Barak Obama, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger had
gotten busted by the cops back in the day for smoking pot especially under
the then archaic “Rockefeller Laws.”
Instead of becoming the distinguished political leaders and role models that
they’ve become, o dedicating their lives to helping to make the world a better place…
Barak Obama, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger might still be languishing
in prison today. Perhaps they might have turned to a life of crime because no one
would have given them a chance since they would have had a criminal record.
Think about that. If Murphy’s Law and the Minister of Misery had teamed up on
any of them, all their potential to change the world for good, would have gone
out the window because they would have been labeled criminals.
How many other individuals with as much potential as them are languishing
in a jail cell or have not been given a fair shake because they had the misfortune
to get caught smoking pot?
More than 5 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses
in the past decade. Almost 90% of these arrests are for simple possession,
not trafficking or sale. This is a miscarriage of justice.
How much more money are we going to spend locking up people just for toking
on a doobie?
Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually.
and results in the arrest of more than 872,000 individuals per year.
This is more than the total number of arrested for all violent crimes combined…
including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
President Jimmy Carter himself acknowledged: “Penalties against drug use
should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”
In the United States marijuana prohibition needlessly destroys the lives and
careers of literally hundreds of thousands of good, hard-working, productive
citizens each year.
People forget that alcohol was once prohibited.Imagine if clearer heads
had not prevailed and repealed the the alcohol prohibition laws.
Most adults in this country would probably be in jail now.
According to a study conducted by Harvard Professor Dr. Jeffrey Miron,
replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation similar to that
integrated on alcoholic and tobacco products would result in annual savings
and revenues of between $10 and $14 billion per year.
Leading the endorsing economists are three Nobel Laureates in economics:
- Dr. George Akerlof of the University of California, Berkeley,
- Dr. Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institute,
- Dr. Vernon Smith of George Mason University.
Akerlof, Friedman, and Smith along with over 500 other economists are supporting
Dr. Jeffrey Miron’s study and are calling for a debate assessing the logic
and rationale behind marijuana prohibition.
Dr. Jeffrey Miron’s study concludes that removing the prohibitive status on
marijuana and replacing it with legal regulation would result in approximately:
…Saving $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at state and local levels
totaling a savings of $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition
enforcement per year.
That’s $80 Billion Dollar Savings over 10 years.
Law enforcement resources can then stay focused on serious and violent crimes.
Watch a short video - The War on Drugs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkYAbGEqCgc&feature=related
Then post your thoughts and leave a comment.
TAGS:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, doobie, Jeffrey Miron, Jimmy Carter, marijuana, Milton Friedman, Murphys Law, pot, Rockefeller Laws
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