Chart of the Day — A Data Point on the Failure of the War on Drugs

Filed in National by on March 21, 2016

Wonkblog shows us one of the consequences of the legalization of marijuana (for both medical and recreational purposes):

Interesting, yes? Legalizing marijuana thins out the importers. And certainly increases some legal entrepreneurial activity here. And it takes some money out of the black market and puts it into tax coffers. I can’t even imagine the savings from getting law enforcement out of the business of policing small users and producers.

Delaware should legalize marijuana, like Colorado and Washington did. Tax it like crazy and be the centerpiece of a Mid-Atlantic market. Get in *early* and start replacing the revenues at risk from casinos that are being out-competed.

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"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

Comments (8)

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  1. Jason330 says:

    The “war on drugs” is a cash cow for Police Unions, and Private Prisons Corporations. There is big money behind keepign the status quo.

  2. mouse says:

    Failure, nah ha

  3. Mikem2784 says:

    Legalization also allows for regulation, which would make it a safer product (think poisoning from bathtub gin during prohibition.) It makes sense on so many levels.

  4. Ben says:

    Every few months, a “synthetic weed”, not yet illegalized hits the head-shops. These are un-researched, hastily made, and almost always, very dangerous (not to mention differences in dosing, high, and after effects). It isnt so much “bad weed” that’s the problem.. if one were to try and buy some nowadays, one would have very little trouble sourcing it from a reputable supply chain that, at one point, was legally sold. It’s the temporarily legal “alternatives” (k-2, spice) that are big problem, and they exist for only one reason.

  5. aaanonymous says:

    Until the federal government changes its tune, no state is allowed to woo out-of-state buyers. Pot tourism, though, could bring in extra dollars.

    But ultimately marijuana is a minor drug. It doesn’t kill anybody, and its worst ill effect has been to turn lots of bros into libertarians..

    The more important step would be to stop treating opioid addiction as a legal matter. Instead of forcing people onto methadone, we should be giving addicts the drugs they need while weaning them off them. It would provide just as many jobs as the drug war does with far less violence and human suffering.

  6. Jason330 says:

    Violence and human suffering isn’t a bug, its a feature.

  7. cassandra_m says:

    And then Harper’s publishes this fantastic article called Legalize it Allwith this amazing quote:

    At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

    Go read the whole thing.

  8. aaanonymous says:

    Great link. Baum wrote about that Ehrlichmann story in 1996 in “Smoke and Mirrors,” which was an excellent history of the WoD up to that time:

    http://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Mirrors-Drugs-Politics-Failure/dp/0316084468