Over 300 Economists Agree: It’s Time to Legalize Marijuana

[jtuck004]

20. Question away, of course, but those weren't expected outcomes of the prohibition

on pot. Actually a site at http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm says that people come up with such misleading information about this so often they documented their answers. A start if one really wants to learn about alcohol prohibition. One of the characteristics of prohibitions is that there is, by definition, no regulation, so a new problem appeared, childhood drinking. People were making the stuff in their bathtubs - wasn't exactly hard to get. Direct testimony talks about an initial improvement by the observation of fewer drunks on the street, but after a couple of years of prohibition the problem was worse than ever.

Google is handy, if someone really cares.

I think anyone who takes a serious look at alcohol prohibition will come to the conclusion that it was tantamount to throwing the rules out the window, pouring every 10,000th barrel down the drain, and calling it enforcement. The cities were awash in the stuff, what passed for corruption in those days was common, and rural folk had their own recipes. Winners in alcohol prohibition are hard to find, but the people who lost out were the police who tried to enforce it, the lives that were ruined in that failed pursuit, and the country for all those losses. They only regained control when they legalized it so they could regulate it.

Btw, the assertion that alcohol being less ok decreases alcoholics only holds true in this country. In most of Europe the phobia about alcohol is far less severe, it is much more culturally accepted in a family setting, yet they report far fewer problems as a result. We must be special.

I find it humorous that the authorities are so helpless in the face of their marijuana war. Weed use has been widespread since I was in junior high in the 60's, and it's widespread and way more sophisticated now. Except for the lives that are ruined by needless arrest and jails, the shit is completely unregulated, so it is everywhere. Few people REALLY care. Pension funds are underfunded while the state spends tax money playing this silly game they can't possibly win, and the police add to their expenses helicopters - expensive helicopters - so they can spend a day in the brush on the taxpayers dime. I do not feel safer.

But back to the questions - more or less legitimate, maybe a little specious. I notice there is nothing in there about the societal cost concerning and to tens of thousands of people arrested or jailed or negatively impacted by enforcement. Because we know the stuff is everywhere anyway, and few seem to care, why are we spending money and hurting people to enforce a policy derived from and sold with racism, not science or potential outcomes?

This question -> "If we legalize marijuana, for example, will we have a worse obesity problem?"<

So we might spend hundreds of millions on a drug war to prevent people from getting fat? I would think we could buy them their choice of P90x or a Zumba DVD and come out a lot cheaper.

The problem is the framing. There is some assumption that the current prohibition is providing much of a curb on marijuana use, and I think people are fooling themselves. It is in garages, bedrooms, thousands of outdoor locations with just a few plants or more. And that's just the 15 year olds It is a weed. It does not take rock science to figure out how to grow it. If you just throw it out the back door on the ground anywhere South of Washington State it will probably grow fast enough that you might be surprised. Grow a bunch of it and the helicopters will come and shake the seed all over several acres for you. Nice helicopters. It is absolutely illegal, yet seeds and plants are shipped in thousands of ways around the world every day. Prohibited, yeah.

Millions of people smoking pot regardless of the prohibition, just because they like it. And yet because of the prohibition in our free society one can never find out enough about it, stop it, or even use it as a resource. It will sap every dollar and life put into that enforcement with a negative return. In addition, I was listening to the owner of the Medical Marijuana place on tv the other day, (understand his focus is adults - no children). His hypothesis (and others) is that there is far more depression among the adults in our country than we acknowledge, and since we really, really suck at dealing with mental health issues we are seeing millions of people self-medicating. So there's a few million more. I guess usage could, and probably would, go up some, but it sounds like the market is pretty large already.

So there really isn't much control, it's most everywhere anyone wants it, (in jail too - LOL) but there are thousands of lives needlessly ruined in pursuit of a failed policy. And we can't regulate it because it's prohibited.

With so much evidence that the war on marijuana users is largely ineffective, potentially hurting us more than it is helping, I wonder if the best question is why?