[shortbus1662]

what makes a drug "illicit"? Is it an opinion?

Is marijuana an "illicit" drug? If so, how why is it one?

Also, to correct a poster from earlier:

Not all drugs are concentrated natural substances. Many drugs are synthetic.

I was referring to prescription drugs, but I thought of one horrible drug that fits that category and that is crank, or methamphetamine. People are making that $#!+ out of clorox, psuedophederine, annyhdrous ammonia, etc. That's nuts.

Marijuana is a naturally growing plant, kinda like shrooms, that is essentially harmless when used as mother nature intended.

The marijuana plant also has some pretty phenomenal uses.

As far as the government losing money on alchohol tax because of pot, that's simply a misguided statement. Alchohol tax would likely not be affected at all.

Regarding regulation and taxation of marijuana and it not being feasable, again misguided.

If the government legalized it, cigarette companies would likely become the main distributor. There would be competition on a large scale and the cost of pot would go WAY, WAY DOWN. People wouldn't waste their time growing pot and smoking it or selling it on their own...at least on a scale large enough to make a difference. It would simply be cheap enough not to go through the hassle of doing it yourself. PLUS, it would remain illegal. The legal aspect, combined with the decreased cost, would rule out any reason to do it yourself.

The federal government could add on a 50% tax and you could buy a box of 20 marijuana cigarettes for say, 10 dollars. 50 cents a joint.

The population of the U.S. is almost 300 million, correct? (irrelevant really, but I'm guessing about 25% of people over 18 smoke pot (see: college) Let's say roughly 50 million people, just for fun. A hell, let's go a different route...

(searching for fact)

found:

Police arrested about a quarter of a million people in the U.S. for mary jane in '04, 771,608 to be exact.

Using ONLY THOSE PEOPLE for estimates now:

If each one of them spends 200 dollars a year on AVERAGE then that equates to:

77 million dollars in tax revenue. While that is certainly not enough to balance the budget, it is DEFINATELY a huge increase in the amount of funds we would use to fight the war on other drugs, or towards anti drug campaigns.

Now lets assume, yes, we are assuming, but we aren't being outlandish by any means, we're likely UNDER ESTIMATING...that only 25% of pot smokers were arrested last year.

That number just went to about 310 million dollars.

Now, let's estimate that only 10% of pot smokers were arrested.

Now we are looking at 3/4 of a billion dollars in tax revenue.

If the average dollars spent per person per year was twice my 200 dollar (random number) now you are looking at 1.5 billion dollars.

You can do a lot with 1.5 billion dollars.

Apply it towards healthcare, education, police budgets, social security, whatever you apply it towards, you have now made a SIGNIFICANT difference in that aspect of our society, all by putting a tax on a product that is already being used in MASS QUANTITIES.

Sure, these numbers are based on NOTHING, other than the number of arrests in '04, and loosely on that, but surely that gives you some kind of an idea of the possibilities.

One person is arrested every 41 seconds or something like that.

89% of those arrests were for POSSESSION ONLY.

We WASTED OUR TIME arresting almost 700k people last year simply because they had mary jane in their possession.

What is the cost associated with one arrest? You have the opportunity cost in terms of man hours being used up on that when they could have been doing something else; the time it took to arrest someone, search a vehicle, paperwork, etc.

They could have been doing something productive towards society like arresting REAL CRIMINALS who hurt children and the elderly, sexual predators, violent criminals who shoot or stab people, POSSIBLY FOR MONEY FOR CRANK OR HEROIN OR some kind of REALLY HARMFUL ADDICTIVE DRUG.

REALLY think about it.

We aren't talking about people driving while high, or people harming others.

We are talking about people who were simply in possession of the substance.