Marijuana Prohibition Wastes Taxes

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It is common knowledge that U.S. taxpayers pay billions of dollars each year to fund the failed War on Drugs. A simple analysis of the War on Drugs shows that most of the costs borne by taxpayers are for marijuana prohibition. With over 700,000 annual arrests, thousands of prisoners and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on anti-marijuana television ads, the War on Drugs is mostly a War on Marijuana.

You can view several reports on the waste of taxpayer dollars and how much one state - Massachusetts - would save in taxes if marijuana was regulated and made available through legal distribution similar to how alcohol is regulated.

Marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers at least $7 billion annually

With $7 billion U.S. taxpayers could . . .

• Give every public school teacher a raise of over $2,000.
• Increase the public education budget by about 2%.
• Provide health insurance to 15 million uninsured Americans, over 30% of our 43 million fellow uninsured Americans, many of who are children.
• Serve school lunches to more than 25 million underprivileged children.

Boston University Study Shows $138 million in New Revenue if Massachusetts Legalizes Marijuana.

You can read the report that Change the Climate commissioned here. The study was conducted by Professor Jeffery Miron, Department of Economics, Boston University.

In short, the groundbreaking study shows that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would have $138 million more revenue if marijuana was regulated and taxed. Most of the new revenue comes from taxpayer savings that are now spent on arresting, administering, prosecuting and jailing marijuana offenders. Millions more would be generated by taxes on the legal sales of marijuana.

Of course Massachusetts cannot legalize marijuana until the federal government changes its policies to allow states to administer their own laws governing marijuana.

If you know of other studies or information on how marijuana laws waste taxpayer dollars, please send the information or link to info@changetheclimate.org.