Thursday, January 14, 2010
Could Mary Jane Help Solve State's Budget Woes?
I spoke below of Pat Powers' (South Dakota War College) hypocrisy regarding nanny state legislation. I have in the past and will continue to advocate for the decriminalization of marijuana. It makes no sense to me, especially in tough economic times, to be spending taxpayer money to jail average citizens.
I'm not usually a fan of MSNBC. But take a look at this piece and ask yourself could we save enough money by decriminalizing mary jane to off-set the possible costs? I think we would be significantly money ahead.
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4 comments:
The republicans are sponsoring more nanny-state legislation this term. Now they want special registration and tracking for prescription medications. Perhaps their most costly nanny-state legislation was the 24/7 twice-a-day mandatory sobriety testing.
Portugal learned that decriminalizing drugs did not increase abuse- it dropped; and did not increase crime- it dropped.
Scroll down to the White Paper: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080
The first Deadwood judge virtually NEVER jailed opium addicts. We should have learned from his common sense example.
Mr. Sanborn, perhaps you have seen this: http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2010/01/12/news/200marijuana.txt
Or this: http://www.dphhs.mt.gov/medicalmarijuana/index.shtml
Based on the video stats, a rough demand analysis says the market for MJ in SD is approx. $35 million per year.
($15 billion market nationwide. Pop of US roughly 300 million. Average per capita spending on pot $50 per person x 700,000 people in SD.)
Does that sound about right? Hey, Mike and Bob could probably sell that much in Sturgis in a week. (Just kiddin' boyz.)
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