Top Ten Reasons to End Marijuana Prohibition by Taxing and Regulating Marijuana

1. Prohibition has failed – marijuana use is mainstream and widespread.

When the federal government first effectively prohibited marijuana in 1937, relatively few Americans had even heard of it. Today, according to 2010 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data, 106 million Americans admit to having tried it (17.4 million in the last month), and every year, the Monitoring the Future survey finds that over 80% of high school seniors say marijuana is easy to obtain.

2. Prohibition is an immense waste of public resources, while marijuana taxation would bring in much-needed revenue.

According to 2010 estimates by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron, replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation would yield $17.4 billion government savings and increased tax revenues.

3. Arresting and prosecuting marijuana offenders prevent police from focusing on real crime.

In Chicago alone, the police superintendent estimated officers spent 45,000 police hours on arrests for 10 grams or less of marijuana in a year. Meanwhile, FBI data shows that less than half of violent crimes and only 18% of property crimes were cleared nationwide in 2010.

4. Prohibition sends an incredible number of Americans through the criminal justice system, ruining countless lives.

According to the FBI, since 1995, there have been more than 12 million U.S. marijuana arrests, with 853,838 in 2010 – significantly more than for all violent crimes combined. Eighty-eight percent of these arrests are for possession – not manufacture or distribution.

5. Marijuana laws are enforced unevenly.

According to Jon Gettman, Ph.D., blacks are three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, despite the fact that use rates among African Americans are proportional to use rates among whites. While marijuana users who were not convicted have gone on the be president or Supreme Court justice, a criminal conviction can stand in the way of securing a job; getting housing; or receiving a professional license, student loans, food assistance, a driver’s license, a firearms permit, or the right to vote.

6. There is no evidence that imposing criminal penalties on marijuana use reduces its use.

The National Research Council found that “perceived legal risks explains very little in the variance of individual drug use”. In 2008, the World Health Organization found that in the Netherlands, where adults are allowed to purchase and possess small amounts of marijuana, both teen and adult use significantly lower than in U.S., where marijuana is illegal.

7. Prohibition makes control impossible.

Producers and sellers of marijuana are completely unregulated. Unlike licensed businesses that sell liquor or tobacco, marijuana sellers operate virtually anywhere and have no incentive not to sell to minors. Prohibition guarantees that marijuana cannot undergo quality control inspectors for purity and potency, creating possible health hazards as a result of contamination by pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, molds, fungi, or bacteria, as well as the lacing of marijuana with other drugs or formaldehyde. Under taxation and regulation, producers and sellers would be licensed and zoned accordingly.

8. Marijuana prohibition breeds violence.

Currently, the only sellers of marijuana are criminals. As in 1920’s Chicago, since disputes cannot be solved lawfully, violence is inevitable. According to the Atlantic, since 2006, more than 50,000 people have been killed in Mexican drug cartel-related violence. Those purchasing marijuana illegally also may face muggings and other violence.

9. Prohibition is bad for the environment.

Because marijuana cultivation is illegal, unlicensed, and carries felony charges, it often takes place in environmentally damaging locations such as national parks and wilderness areas. Under taxation and regulation, marijuana sales would be relegated to regulated, licensed businesses, which would cultivate in legally zoned areas.

10. Marijuana is safer than alcohol.

Unlike legal substances such as water, alcohol, Tylenol, and prescription opiates, marijuana has never caused a single medically documented overdose death in recorded history. Alcohol causes hundreds of overdose deaths each year, and in 2009 (the latest year for which data is available), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 24,518 “alcohol-induced death”. The British government’s official scientific body on drug policy concluded that {legally regulated drugs} alcohol and tobacco are “significantly more harmful than marijuana”. American law treats alcohol as if it were safer than marijuana, encouraging people to drink.