Monday, November 29, 2010
Don't Fear the Reefer
In class we are always discussing the budget deficit facing our state in the upcoming two years. We also discuss the disturbing ways that we will likely go about closing this gap. Most commonly we talk about the cuts on education and health care. I often suggest the legalization and taxation of marijuana as a possible way to at least make a dent in that deficit. It is usually laughed about, but I believe we should look at the real financial benefits of doing so. Most economists and even politicians such as Ron Paul are against the prohibition of marijuana. Economists estimate that the state of Texas would generate as much as 6.2 billion dollars annually if they taxed marijuana as they do alcohol or tobacco. They also say that the we would save 7.7 billion dollars in state and federal expenditures that are used for prohibition enforcement. I don't know exactly how that translates to Texas but considering Texas incarcerates more people than any other state and we have the most active border; I'm guessing Texas makes up a large percentage of that money. Even if it's only 10 % that equates to 770 million dollars per year. Over a two year span that equates to a total of nearly 14 billion dollars in savings and revenue. That is more than half of the estimated deficit. For all of you prohibitionists out there, you are not stopping people from smoking pot by making it illegal. You are only making it dangerous for them to do so. You are also paying for punishing a person for committing a victimless crime. Think about the price you are paying to keep it illegal. If you think it should be illegal, ask yourself why, and then investigate to see if your reasons are justified. This is a situation where being narrow-minded could rob your own child of a quality education, or even cause many children to go without health care. Maybe it's time for a priority check.
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LEGELIZING THE GREEN
ReplyDeleteI agree with legalizing marijuana. Jadamsark from the blog “living around reds makes me blue”, makes a lot of great points to leallize the green. Why not? Like he says by buying and taxing weed the state would raise a substantial amount of revenue that Texas is desperately seeking to close the gap in our budget shortfall. We all know that the Medicaid program is very important to a lot of folks and by no means be dropped. I say this because I have a few family members on Medicaid and they dearly need that program.
I don’t personally use marijuana, but I know some people that do for medical reasons. They tell me helps with some of the pain, but are afraid of getting caught with and facing serious charges. With that being said I strongly believe in at least legalizing marijuana for medical purpose, just like in Cali. If we were to make weed legal for recreational purposes we have to change the process in how we get hired for jobs and such. They obviously drug test future employees before we are hired. People are biased towards weed, but not so much against alcohol. More people die under the influence of alcohol than marijuana by a landslide. However, we are not going to make alcohol illegal because of the money the state profits off of it and its taxes. Also like he says the Texas would generate 14 billion dollars over the next 2 years, half the projected deficit. So economically it would make sense especially to all these powerful rich folks that look and care about money. If I was in congress I would be impressed and somewhat persuaded by his blog and at least give this some kind of consideration.
My classmate suggests the legalization of marijuana as a way to improve the budget loss in Texas. I think this is a horrible idea and have always been totally against it. To many, this isn't such a bad thing and might seem like a reasonable way to fill some of the lingering budget gap that Texas suffers from, but for me however, it seems like a terrible idea. The legalization of marijuana would personally drive me crazy. Anyone under the influence of marijuana, well I will say the majority of people, have a totally different mindset then when they do not have any drugs in there system. Marijuana causes slower activity in the brain and therefore results in.. well... slower people. What people do in their own home is their business, and well I am not totally against the use of it, if we legalize it, a lot of people with be so stoned that it will be unbearable to those more responsible people while in public. I can't imagine working with people in my job environment while they are high, it just wouldn't be feasible, and unfortunately there are a lot of irresponsible people in the world that would abuse the drug more than they already do if it was legalized.
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