Should Governments Legalize and Tax Marijuana?
The government (ie taxes payers) spend a lot of money making sure that illegal drugs to not get in to this country. When I really think that they should some their money on preventing people from coming into our country, not drugs. The Fraser Institute conducted a survey and found out that if the government legalized marijuana and placed taxes on it, our government beget would increase by 7 billion dollars (keeping the price the same $8.60 for 0.5 grams).
That to me is too big of a number just simply not consider especially with all the problems and debt that we are in. I personally view marijuana just like tobacco, and I think the public would as well. Most businesses are offering incentives to quit smoking. I think that business would step up to the plate and offer to stop smoking marijuana. Businesses are already making their employees pass drug tests on a regular basses and I don’t foresee that stopping. Many people are petitioning the stopping smoking in public places and most of the time being successful. Smoking Marijuana would fall under this category, anti smoking advertisements can include marijuana as well. I truly do believe that in my generation smoking in general will become a thing of the past, if you do it you will hid it, and society will phase it out just like every other fad.
2 comments:
Legalizing marijuana has been a topic for many years and probably still will be if the issue isnt addressed any time soon. There will always be sides debating for and against, and each has their own good points to back it up. I personally am not a smoker of cigarettes or marijuana, but I am not necessarily against legalizing it. From an economic standpoint, the point that was brought up about taxing it, could be a huge relief. 7 billion dollars is not petty cash either. I honestly think, whether its legalized or not, people who want to smoke, are going to no matter what the law is. Its the same as drinking underage, people are still going to find ways to do it. So why not legalize it and tax those people who want to smoke? I mean if they are going to do it either way, why not have the economy benefit from it as well?
Whether or not the government will make money in the short run, I think that legalizing marijuana will ultimately cost the US. Although 7 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, the government estimates that it will lose 400 billion dollars this year in tax evasion. If we really needed and wanted that money, then we should work on preventing tax fraud by regulating cash flow electronically, not by legalizing a hallucinogen. What I'm saying is that there are other and better ways for our country to make money. If people are going to smoke anyway, then what is the current problem of having it be illegal?
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