Hey there everybody! I hope you're all enjoying your final days of the winter break <3 so I haven't been posting as much as I should have been... but that's okay! I'm gonna do a catch up this weekend : 3 and well, now.
So, this post is called the green plant and the green paper. Obviously, the green plant is referring to marijuana, and the green paper would be...? MONEY. Yes, it's time to talk about the economy! (FUN.) The debate around the economic factors of weed have been around for years, and it's actually probably one of the only parts to legalising marijuana that I find to be beneficial. However, as I'll show you after, the cons to legalizing weed still outweigh the pros. Obviously.
Before I begin, please watch the video below. It's a news report from CNN from 2010 going over some of the pros and some of the cons that would come with legalizing Marijuana and it's affects on the economy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLU9aCZEHj8
^Video. Sorry about the crappy quality!!!
Alright. Now that you've (hopefully) watched that video, I shall begin!!!!!
Jeffery Miron
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| Jeffery Miron |
Jeffery Miron is a professor at Harvard who conducted a rather large study of how marijuana can benefit the economy. With this study he wrote a paper called "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Legalizations". That;s great, but so did a lot of other people. So what makes this man so famous? Well, he claims his study proves that legalizing weed could save the U.S. 7.7 billion a year. That's uh, kind of a really big number, especially since the States is so pressed for money. Also, legalizing it could rack in a serious amount of revenue from taxes. He figured out that at the same tax rate as alcohol and cigarettes, marijuana's taxes would bring in 6.2 billion dollars!!!!!!!!!! Again, that's kinda a lot of money, and it's not like the States don't need it. Like I mentioned before they're pressed for money, and it's so true! With all the budget cuts and the amount of people being tossed in jail for marijuana, lots and lots of money is being lost. Miron estimated that if weed became legal, then the States would save 7.7 billion dollars by reducing the enforcement and incarceration costs. So basically, we make weed legal, our government gets more money. Well, the States does. Canada would too, if they made weed legal. Which i hope to gos they don't. Now this study is only on Marijuana. There are many more studies that prove that if we make EVERY drug legal, then the amount of money that we could save would be enormous. Like, 46.7 billion dollars. But legalizing every drug? Insane. Legalizing Marijuana, not AS insane.
Works Cited:
Miron, Jeffery A.. "Executive Summary." The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition. Cambridge: Harvard University, 2005. 1. Print.
So, this post is called the green plant and the green paper. Obviously, the green plant is referring to marijuana, and the green paper would be...? MONEY. Yes, it's time to talk about the economy! (FUN.) The debate around the economic factors of weed have been around for years, and it's actually probably one of the only parts to legalising marijuana that I find to be beneficial. However, as I'll show you after, the cons to legalizing weed still outweigh the pros. Obviously.
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