Rebranding Marijuana: How weed could save the economy, end Mexican drug wars, and heal the world

Mexico: 


"We have believed for some time that Mexico should legalize marijuana and perhaps other drugs. But until now, most discussion of this possibility has foundered because our country's drug problem and the U.S. drug problem are so inextricably linked: What our country produces, Americans consume. As a result, the debate over legalization has inevitably gotten hung up over whether Mexico should wait until the United States is willing and able to do the same.

Proposition 19 changes this calculation. For Mexico, California is almost the whole enchilada: Our overall trade with the largest state of the union is huge, an immense number of Californians are of Mexican origin, and an enormous proportion of American visitors to Mexico come from California. Passage of Prop 19 would therefore flip the terms of the debate about drug policy: If California legalizes marijuana, will it be viable for our country to continue hunting down drug lords in Tijuana? Will Wild West-style shootouts to stop Mexican cannabis from crossing the border make any sense when, just over that border, the local 7-Eleven sells pot?"

Héctor Aguilar Camín and Jorge G. Castañeda, The Washington Post

The Economy:

While California struggles to address the state's swelling budget deficit, the legalization of marijuana looms as an attractive way of raising revenue for the state.

The benefits of legalization include:

* An excise tax of $50 per ounce of marijuana would raise about $770 - 900 million per year.

* Retail sales on the legal market would range from $3 - $4.5 billion, generating
another $240 - 360 million in sales taxes.

* Legalization would save over $200 million in law enforcement costs for arrest, prosecution, trial and imprisonment of marijuana offenders. Need for CAMP helicopter surveillance would also be eliminated.

* Based on experience with the cigarette tax, total revenues of $1.5 - $2.5 billion might ultiimately be realized.

* Industrial hemp could also become a major business, comparable to the $3.4 billion cotton industry in California.

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The World:

“Hemps prohibition has led to untold suffering around the globe. If we— the global human population — had been able to grow the miracle plant hemp (Cannabis genus) locally and to use it for local industries and businesses, including and especially for fuel, we would never have needed to be addicted to oil...

“None of this oil-related...degradation of the environment would have occurred if hemp had not been prohibited but had been used wisely and intelligently as a major foundation of human society. Indeed, hemp-based economies could still save the human world, while hemp planting could go a massively long way in rescuing the natural world as well.”

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