The Pros and Cons of Legalization
By popular demand (i.e. by request of a lovely young lady, @ericaschenker), here is my Pro/Con of the legalization of Marijuana for #marimonday:
Pros:
- Lower taxes
- More money for public utilities, education, transportation, etc.
- Vast reduction in organized crime (as marijuana is currently the life-blood of their organization)
- Increased compassion for individuals unable to afford health insurance or proprietary pharmaceutical prescriptions.
- Vast decrease in availability to minors and children via regulatory obstacles and destruction of black-markets.
- Thousands of new jobs created in the hemp industry
- Ripple effect of the new “gardening hobby” would be felt in stores across the nation
- Reduction in need for foreign oil by replacing many petroleum based products with hemp based products (plastics, oils, etc.)
- Reduction of environmental pollutants as Hemp phases out Cotton for many products (hemp does not require nasty pesticides but can create products more durable and equally soft as cotton).
- Reduction in deforestation as hemp can create more, better paper in less space multiple times in a year.
- Respect for law as a whole will improve as millions of good Americans are no longer labeled a “criminal”.
Cons:
- Law enforcement agencies, such as DEA, will lose large chunks of funding
- Certain corporations will be forced to compete with a very cheap, versatile natural resource (pharmaceuticals, lumber, cotton, and petroleum industries, for example)
- International laws would need to be revised, addressed, and changed to reflect the new legalization of marijuana
- Private Prison industry would lose many of its inmates and thus much of its profits.
- It would be nearly impossible to keep Strawberry PopTarts in stock at any convenience store across America.
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May 21st, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I don’t agree with the validity of your first con: “Law enforcement agencies, such as DEA, will lose large chunks of funding ”
law enforcement will not loose any findung, since all the other drugs will still be illegal (you state this is only a pro/con for legalizing marijuana).
In fact you could move that point to the pro side and call it something like: “free’s up large amounts of law-enforcement funds and resources to go after real crimes like rape/murder/theft/assault…”
May 21st, 2009 at 8:52 pm
What you seem to forget is that out of the entire “Drug War” budget, over $7,000,000,000 is spent directly and specifically on stopping marijuana. Henceforth, if marijuana were to be legalized, this funding would no longer be available. Now, sure the argument could be made that the other “offices” would absorb the money, but that is not necessarily the default action. If money is earmarked for a certain expenditure and said expenditure is no longer needed, one would assume it wouldn’t simply be spent on the next thing on the list; rather, I believe it would require voting and normal political action. Realistically, however, with the amount of budget-crisis currently going on, it would be absurd to think that the savings of billions of dollars would easily be re-assigned to other drug-prevention just because they used to share a common category. I’m sure politicians would be drooling over other uses for it.
The goal of my top 10 list was to be a simple, realistic list of pro’s and cons… and realistically, if you have people employed specifically for the containment of marijuana, then when marijuana is no longer illegal, those people will no longer have their jobs. Some of them may be re-trained and absorbed into other departments, but I believe it would be foolish to assume that everyone would still have a job at all.
As for your comment regarding prisons, again, the goal of my list was not to deem things right or wrong, simply make statements. While I personally do not believe in the for-profit venture of many modern private prisons, the fact remains that less prisoners equates to less money, which means many prisons (and towns which rely on profits from said prisons) would be adversely affected by legalization. Is that a “con” to me? No… but it is a con to some, so I included it.
So again, do I believe it is a con to put police out of work who enforce immoral laws? No, I call it progress. However, if you are one of those cops, or your husband/wife is, or a family member, friend, etc. Then yes, marijuana legalization will play a part in people being laid off, and I’m sure they would view that as a “con”.
Keep in mind, that my list was also a bit of tongue-in-cheek at this idea
.
I appreciate your feedback =).
May 21st, 2009 at 8:29 pm
damn,
I should have spell-checked before I hit submit.
One other point…
there will of course be a reduction in the prison population, but there should be more dangerous criminals that are arrested and in prison instead of the non-violent marijuana users….so it may be a wash.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
It can’t be ignored that a legalization of marijuana would likely cause a surge in marijuana use, at least in the short term. I suppose whether that’s a pro or con is the debate.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
There may appear to be a surge simply because there would be metrics available (legal) to measure use, but keep in mind that studies don’t seem to back up the idea that legalized marijuana equates to everyone using it who would have otherwise not use it. Further, let’s keep in mind that to even be concerned whether or not more people use it should be directly proportional to the risk of the substance in question.
When AM/PM releases a new cheese-stuffed, deep-fried, bacon-wrapped hot-dog, chances are “usage” of it will increase and it is not even a question of whether or not it is healthy… yet it is completely legal and no one freaks out. So why should we be scared of people using something that not only can’t kill you, but has been shown to increase the quality of life in so many who do use it?
We keep inventing reasons to be scared of a plant who’s only fault was angering big-business with deep pockets decades ago.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:10 pm
My god, not the poptarts.