By Kyle Swisher
Marijuana is like Coors beer. If you could buy the damn stuff at a Georgia filling station, you'd decide you wouldn't want it.
---Billy Carter
With the government spending countless resources on the fight against the illegal sale of Marijuana it would seem beneficial -due to the continual and large use of Marijuana still prevalent in the U.S. - to possibly consider other available options as to Marijuana’s role in the U.S. society. Possibilities that could maybe even extend into areas of legalization by placing a tax on the product just as government taxes are placed on both tobacco and alcoholic products. Understanding that this a very conservative nation it would be some time before any action such as this were taken, but already Economist Stephen Easton conducted a study on how much revenue the Canadian government could gain by legalizing marijuana. Concluding that in theory the government could control demand of marijuana through taxation and at the same time turn a profit. There are many other factors at hand in conducting such legalization, however, the basis for the idea is strong and with a liberal country such as Canada, the idea may arise sooner than you may expect.
Not only is the potential idea of turning a profit on Marijuana beginning to arise, this Legalization could in turn lead to the drop in demand for Marijuana. It can be argued that half of the appeal for Marijuana IS the fact that it is illegal, you take that away, the demand may spike initially but then begin to fall over time. It follows economic principle that if the supply rises then the demand is going to go down and with the legalization the supply would obviously go up, drive prices down and then level out resulting in government profits and a lower demand. In addition, the funds that had once been put towards the constant monitoring of its trafficking could be appropriated towards areas of need such as education and health care.
Sources: http://economics.about.com/od/incometaxestaxcuts/a/marijuana.htm
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5 comments:
I believe if marijuana would become legal there would still be people who would sell it illegally. People would probably end up wanted better stuff than what the government themselves would produce. I can't see going into a store and buying kind bud or purple haze packs of marijuana cigarettes and they would more than likely be a basic type of marijuana. One reason the government may have not legalized already could be a reason of this if they knew it would be a big profit then they possibly would have legalized already
I agree with jon. I have read this blog a few times, and it took me until i read jon's comment to make a realization. People do want what they can't have. It's called the Law of the Forbidden Fruit. For those who don't know it, it is referencing back to fall of the garden of eden by eve eating the forbidden fruit of the tree. Had it not been forbidden, it wouldn't have been as tempting. It's human nature. By legalizing marajuana, smoking it would lose its appeal and people would turn to another source, something illegal again and worse. More people would turn to mixing it with cocaine and other drugs putting people in worse shape than they were when it was illegal. So, it may be a maneuver to lower the amount of illegal activity and cut down on the actual overall use, but in the end it will be balanced by illegal use of worse drugs and hurting more people than helping.
I agree with jon all the way. It really wouldn't be smart cuz people will still try n sell it. And I also thing that it would just be wrong to have kids coming to class high and staff wouldn't have anything to do with it.
I completely agree with Justin. This blog inspires the fact that there in fact other alcoholic beverages as well as drugs that are legal. There are many people in the economy that are willing to do marijuana which means the demand has risen and it would help the government and also would satisfy the economy. Awesome blog!
I feel that it would be better for marijuana to become legalized. if it would drop the rate of people using the drug wouldn't that be a good thing? I know that they say weed is a started drug so having less people smoke it would be better for the world would it not? even if the government would make less money, saving future drug addicts lives seems better to me then the price of money.
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