Question on drugs/the economy
SilverSeed
Posts: 336
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/28/prison.population.ap/index.html
This article got me thinking.
Is there any singular thing the U.S. could do to help the economy more than legalizing marijuana? Immediately spending (via the war on drugs) would be cut drastically. Taxes on the now legal, regulated marijuana would be enormous. How many hundreds of thouands of inmates would be let go? More tax savings...
Some may say end the war, but war in general is great for an economy. I really believe a lot of our economic issues could be, if not solved, at least lessened by this one action.
Thoughts?
This article got me thinking.
Is there any singular thing the U.S. could do to help the economy more than legalizing marijuana? Immediately spending (via the war on drugs) would be cut drastically. Taxes on the now legal, regulated marijuana would be enormous. How many hundreds of thouands of inmates would be let go? More tax savings...
Some may say end the war, but war in general is great for an economy. I really believe a lot of our economic issues could be, if not solved, at least lessened by this one action.
Thoughts?
When Jesus said "Love your enemies" he probably didn't mean kill them...
"Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait, not me, you." -Deep Toughts, Jack Handy
"Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait, not me, you." -Deep Toughts, Jack Handy
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Brother...I 100% agree with you.
http://www.myspace.com/brain_of_c
Thanks, nice sig man.
"Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait, not me, you." -Deep Toughts, Jack Handy
While I think this is an idea that at least deserves a lot of study (the only flaw I see at the moment is that there isn't a Breathalyzer for being high while driving) I don't think the taxes thing would really be that much of an impact. I mean if you look at it one way, if you are a big time drug dealer you are probably already laundering your money at which point you are paying taxes on it. Say for example I am a drug supplier. One week I make a million dollars selling drugs. But I can't go and deposit a million dollars worth of drug money in my chequing account, so instead I buy a cash only business like a copy shop or a car wash. At that point my million dollars worth of illegal drug money, becomes a million dollars worth of legal car wash revenue (minus my income tax and any sales tax I would have to show). Plus from what I understand to launder money you typically run it through a couple of different business so it is harder to trace, and if that is the case you are paying income tax on it a couple of times over. So if someone could legally claim that million dollars worth of drug money on their income tax they would be paying the same thing, if not less because they are only claiming the money once.
As far as cops go I think at minimum they should concentrate on what I think they call force deployment, where since you have a limited police force you decide which crimes are the biggest focus. I mean for an extreme example if you had a town with 1 cop would you prefer that they spent all their time arresting people for getting high, or arresting a serial killing or rapist. I think in most places there are more criminals than cops, so they should put the priorities on the more sever crimes.
We may differ on some issues, but I'm right with you on this one.
Refunding everyone's 2007 taxes in their entirety would go a long way. Combine that with permanent tax cuts and making government a whole lot smaller and our economy would be back on its feet.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Does anyone else care if stoners are driving? There isnt a test like this right now and cops still make a determination on it so in my opinion I could care less about the whole stoners driving thing but I'm sure some people would disagree.
Yes there is. Have the cop dangle a bag of Doritos in front of him.
Hail, Hail!!!
it's not going to happen in one sweeping bill. why not start chipping away at the budget and governmental involvement in our lives one sensible battle at a time? today, pot. tomorrow, department of education. etc etc.
I disagree. If you're smoking pot, you should not drive. They need to develop some sort of on-the-spot marijuana test. I would be happy to see marijuana legalized as long as we tax the shit out of it.
As for the legalizing marijuana. Apart from the taxation benefits i've heard of many uses for hemp. I'm sure other people on the board could elaborate. Naturally the first step to all this would be peer reviewed scientific research the obstacle of course being government approval.