The Marginal costs and benefits of the Legalizing Marijuana in the

United States

My paper is going to focus specifically on the marginal costs and benefits that the United States
would gain by changing their policies on marijuana and its consequences and by treating it like any
other consumer product. I will be focusing on things from the point of view of the government itself
and I will be focusing on items strictly from a financial point of view, opinions aside. I will be going
over the profits that could be made by taxing marijuana like any other product or like tobacco or
alcohol is taxed, the amount of money that could be shifted on from the war on drugs onto other
more useful areas of need, and the amount of money that could be saved by not housing inmates in
prison over marijuana possession, distribution or consumption.

Marijuana has been a hot topic in the United States for the quite some time now. Most people,
our last three presidents included, have admitted to partaking of marijuana at some point in their life.
Not to mention most celebrities, rock stars, college and high school students, and even regular
citizens seem to enjoy the occasional joint. While marijuana is no more dangerous than some of the
other drugs that many Americans partake in, namely alcohol and tobacco, it is treated as if it were the
most dangerous drug ever seen. Even though most states allow doctors to perscribe medical marijuana
to certain sick patients, those who use it recreationally are looking at minimum mandatory sentences of
at least one year in prison and up to $1,000 fine for any amount on their first offense and up to life in
prison for selling or cultivating marijuana and a $1,000,000 fine. The money that is poured into
catching and prosecuting these individuals is so high that if we were to take that money and redistribute
it into other programs the government would literally have billions of extra funds to use.

 Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately
$7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement- $2.4 billion on a federal level and
$5.3 billion on the state and local levels.

Think of the possibilities if we took the money that we spent of chasing down petty pot users
and applied it to something else such as education or helping the homeless. But instead the government
officials tediously sift through all the pot users and drop them into prisons around the country for
something that is now even legal in many states.

But it doesn't stop there for the money to be made for legalizing marijuana. That same study
goes on to say that if we were to tax marijuana we could nearly double those savings.
Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if it were
taxed like ordinary goods up to $6.2 billion dollars if it were taxed like alcohol and tobacco.

In other words, not only could we save nearly $8 billion dollars by no longer tracking down pot
heads and throwing them in jail, but if we sold marijuana in our drugs stores or gas stations like we do
beer or cigarettes we could make and additional $6 billion dollars. That $6 billion more dollars that we
could use to pay down the deficit or use to improve our military. Instead we frivolously flush our
money down the toilet while using out of date or incorrect data as a shield against naysayers.

Looking at this problem from another angle only improves the argument for legalizing
marijuana. According to the The Price of Prisons fact sheet from January 2012 it costs U.S. Tax
payers $29,239 per inmate per year to incarcerate and hold a prisoner. This includes security, food,
health care, inmate education and training, and staff costs. In Utah alone, we paid $186 million dollars

in one year in order to maintain the prisons. Its only getting worse now as well, seeing as the Utah
prison population has grown by almost 250% from 1985 to 2007. There are currently 7,170 people
incarcerated under DOC jurisdiction. Of which, 6% are being held on marijuana possession,
distribution or cultivation. Thats $12,578,618 per year that is spent on keeping these dangerous
individuals off our streets. If Utah were to take those funds annually and put them into education we
would jump from 31st overall in spending on education to 3rd.

Joan Shipps of the Huffington post wrote The prohibition of marijuana in the United States
may have happened only recently, but its consequences have been swift and dire. The Sentencing
Project reported last year that one in three black males can expect to go to jail in their lifetimes. Given
that felons are often stripped of their voting rights even after they have served our their sentences, and
given the seeminly unstoppable expansion of carcerality plauging our nations, the number of
disenfranchised felons in the United States grew from 1.17 million in 1976 to 5.85 million by 2010, and
at the rate of 500% since 1980.

There are many factors in the rapid growth of the United States prison rates and not all of them
are marijuana related. However, by eliminating marijuana charges and focusing on other areas we could
at least begin to address this growing problem of locking up out own people and taxing the rest of us to
take care of them. Rather than punishing those who have done wrong we could invest in our futures
and teach them at a young age what they are supposed to be doing right. This would not only cut down
on the number of prison inmates but it would also benefit the country as a whole. A more educated
society would only boost a hurting economy and open the doors of possiblity. Imagine if we spent as
much time and effort in the cultivation of our children as we did punishing those who violate even the
smallest of infractions. The future would rapidly change from one full of debt and hopelessness to a

bright future where anything is possible.

References
www.prohibitioncosts.org
www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-shipps/dc-marijuana-legalization_b_6077894
www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_spending_2015b20c
www.alec.org/initiatives/prison-overcrowding/prison-overcrowding-utah/w
www.norml.org/laws/item/federal-penalties-2
www.vera.org/files/price-of-prisons-utah-fact-sheet.pdf