Reefer Madness Hits Colorado’s Toddlers

As long as it is a program drug addicts have to pay for themselves then I am all for it.

When I think of tax dollars to be used to help people I am thinking of food, possibly even housing, for school, maybe even for transportation so people can get to work and make money to buy their own vehicle. I am not down for spending money on "party pills" and powders so some jackass can see unicorns and rainbows or have a better Xbox experience.

Make drugs legal, fine, but the druggies can do it on their own dime. Thats how we make and save money. The country makes money selling these legal substances, and we save money by not wasting it on druggies. More money for education and things people actually need to survive.

Plus this will thin the heard of morons anyways.

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No just a cheaper one. Let them buy all the drugs they want, but on their own dime and they get no funding from the government to fund their habit. The government doesn't give me money to buy a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing beer, so why the hell should I have to pay for someone elses meth habit?

 

*******n annoying. I typed a whole response and hit the close button so I won't jump through the details. As mentioned before if we legalized weed tax benefits after overhead would probably be about 1.5 billion. If weed was taxed at the same federal and state average of cigarettes that number would climb to about 3 billion. In order to hit 8.7 billion in tax revenue the tax rate would need to be about 116% and thats assuming sales volume wouldn't decrease with the price increase which is unlikely. It also doesn't account for the spending on treatment centers or facilities democrats want to institute.

Even at 3 billion a year though thats a drop in the bucket nationally. This isn't just federal tax either, it includes state taxes. The federal cut of that would be about 1.16 billion. Pour 3300 pennies on your kitchen table. Grab one penny out of the pile. That would represent the federal tax benefit of legalizing marijuana.

I don't think the war on drugs is a success. Its far from it. I don't know how to fix it, that's totally out of my field of expertise. I do know that when something isn't working the only and/or best solution is not completely throwing in the towel.

I read stories all the time where I feel like people should be in jail way longer than they are for the crimes they committed. I also feel like we spend too much money jailing people when it should be cheaper to put a bullet in their head and get it over with.
On the same hand I hate our jury system. It sucks. A lot of people go to prison where there clearly isn't enough evidence.
I absolutely hate rewarding people for being worthless to society. I also absolutely hate that children suffer because their parents suck. I also hate that if you take the children away that we don't have a good enough foster system to care for these children.

Complicated problems have complicated solutions.

There is always a give and a take, and there is never going to be a perfect answer. Drug addiction is not a small problem. Its not a problem that's easily solved. Its a very dangerous problem. Its a problem that is destroying our communities. Its a very expensive problem whether you're attempting to treat it or prevent it. Rehab has a huge failure rate even with celebs who have millions of dollars for the best treatment possible. Its totally unreasonable to think that we can somehow snap our fingers and figure all of this (*)(*)(*)(*) out, especially on a massive massive scale.

The argument for people who are pro drug use always comes down to two things

1.) Money - Which I've already showed is a myth.
2.) Freedom - If someone wants to get high they should be able to get high.

My argument is legalization is more likely to become a total (*)(*)(*)(*) show than anything of benefit. Our government has no track record of doing things well. The private sector has no record of treating addiction efficiently. Why we would expect this to suddenly change is beyond me. Legalization is a huge gamble to our communities and to me its not one worth taking.

 

We respect children's rights. Not in the womb, mind you, but most everywhere else.

I'm OK with CPS intervention.

 

Almost.

I want any I engage to admit that America would spiral into lethargy if everyone smoked dope. We fail. Once that's on the table and agreed then it's a short step to the admission it's unlikely to be positive for anyone.

That destroys the unalloyed good myth.

But nobody will offer up the required intellectual honesty so ...

... screw it. I expect exactly this from the dopers.
.

 

Ignorance has been the problem with guns, alcohol, Marijuana, politics and every other aspect of life.

Obviously we need to rid the world of stupid people. Starting with the ignorant people that didn't put the edibles up out of reach from the 2 foot tall child. Then we can move on and get rid of the people that blame alcohol for a drunk driving crash. Then those that blame guns for killing people. And anyone who blames an object for something instead of the moron that had that object in their possession. That will solve the problem and responsible people won't have to suffer for the ignorance of others anymore.

 

Well I am too, but that is a different matter. CPS does need some reinventing though, too many horror stories about them going after the wrong people.

But anyways if we legalize all drugs CPS is going to have to grow.

 

Hogwash!
This is no different than if you leave alcohol where a kid can get to it.

 

Indeed, and since drugs are very prevalent in our society, it's obvious that making them illegal has done next to nothing.

 

Think of it as job creation. Legal job creation.

 

again, if you drive drunk your not drinking responsibly..... I am only referring to those consuming responsibly

if you have wine with diner and are not over the limit, you can drive home... legally

 

As currently constituted. The attrction and profit of illegality needs to be removed while retaining some safety elements. Exactly how to do that requires some hard thought by the experts.

 

Ah...the sort of rational fact based response you are known for.

 

How long did it take you to simply parrot what I already posted?

 

I have not analyzed the potential tax revenues, but if you are going to do a cost benefit analysis you also have to add back the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on the extra law enforcement, judicial system, and incarceration costs associated with drug "crime." Not to mention the social cost of illicit profits fueling criminal organizations.

So you think it was a wrong move to repeal alcohol prohibition? If so I disagree. It was far better that we threw in the towel.

Well, no, you've ignored a bunch of cost items as I've shown.

As you've pointed out, despite 50 year war on drug that has cost us scores if not hundreds of billions and the erosion of our liberties, we already have problems with drug addiction. As we have problems with alcohol addiction and tobacco addiction. The problem of drug addiction is already there, so that is already a cost being born. The issue is whether legalization would lead to a major increase in addiction, and, given the relative ease of obtaining marijuana already, I don't see the argument for that.

If anything, legalization may reduce addiction problems because you can control the quality and potency of what is consumed.

 

About 15 seconds. It was apropos.

 

fail.

.........

 

I mean of course it will create jobs, the that's a good thing. I just don't believe tax dollars should be spent to support someone's habit is all.

 

Again, the legal limit is a bunch of horse cocky, it should be done on a person to person basis because alcohol does not effect everyone the same. Just like weed will put some people o their ass, while others will be just fine and function normally.

But anyways it's not just driving, I can be arrested for walking while being intoxicated lol. I can be in trouble if there is an empty beer in the back seat, even if I didn't drink it.

So take it as is, just saying your premise is wrong is all. There are a bunch of ways to be arrested over alcohol, drunk, drinking or not.

 

The law enforcement doesn't go away if Marijuanna is legalized. I haven't seen any detailed reports from Oregon, Washington, or Colorado discussing reductions in cost in law enforcement, judicial cost, and incarceration cost due to Marijuanna legalization.

The reports that have been released cite before and after rates and than imply that legalization is the cause, although there is no evidence to back up that claim.

For example, I've seen a report that suggested because there was 7400 less cases for possession of marijuana in Colorado that the court saved about 2.2 mil dollars. They didn't include the revenue coming in for fines though. This was not a state report, it's a journalist making inferences.

I've seen the same type of reports from journalist claiming DUIs have gone down in Colorado. While that may be the case DUIs have gone down in most major cities with the popularity of services like Uber. There is no data to suggest marijuana legalization is why those DUIs went down. They also fail to compare that data to other states. What if Colorado DUIs went down 2% but what if all of other states went down by 10% within the same time period? What if Marijuanna DUIs went up 160% while alcohol DUIs went down 30%? The data and the argument is inherently flawed.

I've seen conflicting reports in Colorado about teen use both dramatically higher and staying flat.

I've seen reports that violent crime is down in Colorado. Would that have happened with or without legalization? Who knows but without an in depth report you can't determine what the cause of that reduction was.

All of these supposed financial benefits you and everyone else has claimed is in a land of make believe. It's a projection, and ones that have largely not proven to even be reasonably accurate in the three states that have legalization now. (Such as overshooting tax benefits by 600%)

Has there been small amounts of tax revenue? Yes. Is it meaningful? No.

I do think if the war on drugs and prohibition was successful we would have had about 300,000 less people killed in DUI related accidents the last 30 years (We average about 10,000 a year)

 

Which assumes you'll collect the fine money, and generally if someone goes to actual jail, the fines are erased and the debt for having them incarcerated is passed onto the tax payer.

Even from that perspective, legalizing pot saves money. You'd be an idiot to believe otherwise.

 

And I'm sure you have data that shows how many of these people went to jail and had debt forgiven instead of paying a fine? I didn't think so...

Its far more likely people pay a fine than go to jail.

 

My point is that the small fees associated are wiped out by the larger costs of incarcerating people at cost to the tax payer, something YOU are ignoring in your idiotic, childish argument.

 

It's not successful. That's the point.

It appears that roughly half the US prison population is for drug offenses.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.gV4ub5Kp.dpbs
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp

We spend about $80 billion a year for prisons, over $100 billion for police, and $40 billion for the judicial system.

Obviously ending drug prohibition doesn't mean you don't need prisons, police, or a judicial system, but by taking out roughly half of the people being processed and jailed, significant potential savings are possible.

 

The average fee for the court cost you are referring to is $300, which is more than covered by the size of fines that are imposed.

We don't incarcerate people for possession of marijuana. According to the DOJ's latest figures less than 9,000 people in the country were jailed due to marijuana possession, nearly all of which pleaded down for more serious crimes such as drug tracking or dealing.

The whole "people are in jail for possession of weed" thing is a myth.

 

Those figures aren't related to Marijuana possession so whats your point? Do you have any stats on how many of those are for manufacturing, selling, or trafficking drugs as opposed to possession of drugs? Do you have stats on what drugs they are referring to? Cocain, Meth, Heroin etc?

Even if the drugs were legalized those would still be the same crimes.