Why YOU should want to legalize marijuana

Every time I read arguments supporting the legalization of marijuana (and drugs in general) they are presented in altruistic manner. You will hear things like "don't treat addicts like criminals, threat them like patients" or "reduce crime and make are streets safer" and even "regulate drugs like alcohol and it will be harder for our kids to access them". And while I agree with all of the above, the argument doesn't seem to be working.

Fact: 41% of americans support legalizing marijuana (zogby).

That's less than half. So, by using my amazing powers of deduction, I can extrapolate that like...more than half of Americans oppose legalizing marijuana. We do still live in a Democracy, more or less, and in order to change law we need to change public perception.

This is a hard task. Especially considering the U.S. drug czar has an annual advertising budget of $60 million, which he uses primarily to run anti-marijuana ad campaigns. [note: $60 million is in FY2009, 44% less than in previous years] So I have decided to present a new argument. Well, it's actually not new, but rather underused. Here we go. Legalizing marijuana is in your interest. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe, unless you are the White House drug czar, John Walters.

How would you like to pay less money in taxes? Sound good? Legalizing marijuana would save the american taxpayers an estimated $44 billion every fiscal year.

How would you like free, quality health care? Legalizing marijuana would save the federal government billions of dollars every year, enough money to make serious steps in that direction.

How would you like to see more responsive cops on your streets? A marijuana user is arrested every 38 seconds. Legalizing marijuana would free up significant amounts of resources for law enforcement agencies that could then be focused on, say, violent crime or terrorism.
Want to reduce crime in your neighborhood? Legalizing marijuana would put drug trafficking organizations between a rock and a hard place. No one is going to buy their marijuana from gangster Joe if they can go around the corner and buy it at 7 11.

Would you like to see our country have more money and government resources being spent on things that improve your quality of life? Taxing marijuana like tobacco would produce an estimated $37 billion in tax revenue.

How about improvements to the economy? Isn't that good for everyone? Marijuana is currently America's largest cash crop, producing more money in the United States than other other crop. That is a booming market that, under current regulation, does nothing but line the pockets of criminal organizations. Legalizing the production and sale of marijuana would mean that we could tax and regulate it. We could benefit from it rather than be harmed by it.

These are all things that will benefit YOU if marijuana were to be legalized.

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