Prohibition, has anyone liked it? No one liked it when alcohol was made illegal, unless you were a gangster in the 1920’s as we can see on Boardwalk Empire, and even then it was sketchy. NY State has been spending huge amount of money to fight the war on pot. They are spending roughly $10-15 billion a year to keep this drug off the street. That is ludicrous when the revenue from taxing marijuana could produce $1.08 billion.
About 6% of New Yorkers have used marijuana in the last month, which equals out to be about 1.2 million people. Daily users acquire for another 20% of this population, which is about 240,000 New Yorkers. If you assume the daily users consume on average 2 grams per day, that would constitute that the group is smoking about 400,000 to 600,000 grams per day. Imagine what the revenue would be like and what we could do with that money instead of fighting it. If the people want it they should have it. This is a people’s country I thought.
The reduction in law enforcement alone would be about $390 million. A harsher drug than marijuana, that’s right cigarettes, brought in $1.3 billion in tax revenue just last year. So imagine what taxation on pot can do. NYC has been the marijuana arrest capital of the world. Just last year 46,000 people were arrested in some form of possession. I think it’s pretty safe to say that 10% of our annual law enforcement budget is spent on fighting a victimless crime. Lets legalize and spend the money on good things such as fixing our roads, parks, and education system. It’s time to give the people of the city what they want.
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