Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Puff Puff Pass Already Congress!
Despite Texas' conservative nature, I believe that marijuana should be legalized for the sake of our economy, not to mention the mere thought of society. According to the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, our state has already spent over $8 billion dollars on marijuana related incidents in 2010 so far. With just a short 4 months into the year there has already been over 500,000 arrests in Texas this year, about 237,000 have been cannabis related. With numbers this high, one has to wonder how much the lowly taxpayers are shelling out for this rather harmless offense. Nonetheless, the fact that marijuana is illegal is like throwing fuel on the Mexican drug trade altogether. By continuing to reject legalization, it has made the drug trade even more profitable for Mexican Cartels. In regard to any business, where there is a demand someone will most definitely step in to meet those demands, thus explains the ever growing drug trade, sought out by the Mexican Cartels in the first place. Other debates have led to alcohol versus marijuana controversies. I think that marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol, merely because it doesn't impair the user as much as alcohol would. Considering that the "use of marijuana is now so widespread that no significant change in use is likely regardless of the laws; individual responsibility will govern as always," it seems that continuing to make marijuana illegal is only causing more distress on an already controversial issue. Now, I'm not saying that marijuana doesn't have is negatives but compared to alcohol the consequences are minor. Nonetheless, "marijuana definitely can be abused, but that is no justification for institutionalizing hypocrisy and establishing a government protected monopoly for alcohol and tobacco." The state of Texas could actually benefit from the production and sale of marijuana by regulating and taxing, just as it does for tobacco and alcohol, both of which have worsening health effects with continued use, compared to marijuana. With all this in consideration, I believe that it is in the state's best interest to legalize marijuana and reap its benefits. In conclusion, instead of wasting billions of taxpayers dollars maybe its time we all benefit from the earthly blessing and the money it could potentially yield. After all, this conceptually friendly drug could be use to better our society, not only by decriminalizing to save money but put the money we save and even procure back into the community by dispersing it to education and other public needs.
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I agree that marijuana does need to be legalized. Like you said, if it was legalized it would help our stance against the Mexican drug cartel. How many arrests have there been this year for alcohol related incidents? If Texas wants to defend its borders and take power away from the cartel they must legalize it to take away their supply powers as you said. What i fear is once it becomes a legal substance, all the cartels that are making illegal money off of it will start to move into the states illegally to produce a more potent form. Legalizing marijuana will save us billions in tax dollars that would otherwise be spent to prosecute individuals. But it will also create a new problem, that will require tax money to still be spent tracking down and eliminating illegal grow operations that will form. Given we won't spend as much as we currently are, we will still need to find ways to address the problem that will occur. California has Marijuana legalized and they are experiencing a lot of problems within their wildlife parks because illegal immigrants are starting to do guerrilla growing. Not only does this require them to destroy and chop down trees, they are polluting the environment with pesticides and other chemicals because they can't maintain their crops daily. The best start is to legalize marijuana but this won't solve all of our problems.
ReplyDeleteI agree a 100% with the blog Life As We Know It that marijuana should be legalized or at least decriminalized. I really like your statistics, on the 2010 marijuana incidents. That should also be added to the 8.5 billion Texas has budgeted for the correctional system according to the Legislative Budget Board. From the investigating I have done, I have found that the average cost of housing an inmate is between $22,000-$40,000 per inmate per year, this is rediculous.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the violence in the drug business, I also agree that it would decrease. What people need to remember is it is no longer just a border problem with the violence, it is a problem for the whole United States. The cartels and gangs(I.E. MS-13, Serranos, Texas Syndicate, Mexican Mafia, Tango Blast) are the ones who are fighting for the control of this business and they will kill anyone who gets in their way.
And the last thing I wanted to comment about was the taxes we could make from legalizing marijuana. You touched on it, but did you know that California had estimates as high as a billion dollars a year. Now I know this will not end the budget problems we have, but if you stop incarcirating people for marijuana and legally taxed people the state would do a lot better.
In all I would say I agree with you. Keep up the good fight!
I think we can all agree that these days you need to save as much money as possible. If you agree with that it’s also safe to say that you agree its stupid to spend money fighting against something you could use to make money. That is our current situation in the legalization of marijuana debate. Our government is passing up on making profit. Like my classmate Emily Wenzlaff has stated in here blog “Puff Puff Pass Already Congress” it would not only bring income but reduce spending in our criminal justice system. According to her blog Texas has had over 500,000 arrests this year 237,000 of which being cannabis related. So if we are to stretch that statistic a bit further that would mean about half the people in our prison system are in there on cannabis charges. If marijuana was made legal those prisoners would be set free. This is turn would greatly help our problem of overpopulated jails. In addition to saving the money that would have been used to house, feed, and tend to those prisoners. Those are two very major benefits right off the bat. Not to mention the profit that would come off of the selling of legalized cannabis. It would be taxed in much the same way as tobacco and alcohol. She also brings up the money that will be saved by not having to hunt down Mexican drug cartels. With legalization there market will almost entirely go away. Why would you go to a shady drug dealer to get it when you could just walk to the corner store and pick it up with your soda and chips. Please do not get my wrong I’m not saying it will solve drug cartel problem just greatly reduce it. With all things weighed and measured I have to agree with Emily that we need to puff puff pass legalized cannabis.
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