The NewsHour looks at legalization in California

And not a lick of reefer madness until the 5:00 mark!

Once again, I have to ask the cop at the end of the piece: How many people who don’t smoke pot now are going to start smoking pot once it is legal, and how much is that going to cost? Whatever it is, make the tax on pot equal to that amount, minus the expenditures we’ll save on not arresting people and sending helicopters on weeding missions, and we’ve covered the costs!

That stupid retort that legal weed will cost society more than the taxes only works if you believe that nobody is smoking weed now and suddenly when it’s legal, everyone will smoke weed. 22,000,000 PEOPLE ARE SMOKING WEED THIS YEAR ALREADY! Whatever that costs us as a society, we’re already paying NOW without taking in any tax money!

Employment status of employable adults who will use marijuana this year

I’d argue that what we spend right now in keeping it illegal plus the costs incurred by the violence and crime associated with illegal markets far exceeds any possible cost that marijuana smokers cost society right now. Furthermore, by the government’s own figures, roughly 89%-94% of the employable (not disabled, below retirement age) US adults who will use marijuana at least once this year are employed full- or part-time.

Frequency of use of marijuana for those who'll use it this year.

Now, it does appear that as frequency of marijuana use increases, unemployment increases, from 5% for infrequent users to 10% for frequent users.  When you look at the 22 million adults who’ll use  marijuana this year, it works out to about a third (35%) who’ll use less than once a month, a third (29%) who’ll use twice a week or less, and a third (36%) who’ll use it more than twice a week.

That first third of infrequent users, about 4.4 million of them, have unemployment figures about the same as non-users.  There are more of them working part-time.  Perhaps this is due to drug testing that keeps many cannabis consumers out of fulfilling full-time work.  I’d say that infrequent users costs vs. benefits are probably a wash in a legalized world.

For that second third of frequent users, while the unemployment increases, the full-time rates are about the same as the infrequent users.  It seems that the frequent users who can get full-time work keep it.  That last third of chronic users still has more than two-thirds working full-time.  How many of these folks aren’t getting work because of criminal drug records in their past when employers do background checks?

If there are costs to be incurred from legalization, it can only be through initiation of a vast number of new users and the migration of existing users into categories of more frequent use.  It’s hard to imagine people who want to smoke pot now but haven’t because it’s illegal, but assume there are some.  It can’t be anywhere close to the 22 million who are smoking this year already, can it?  And for those using cannabis now who might use more if it were legal, if there is a correlation to those people consuming less alcohol, the savings in alcohol-related costs may well cover any imagined costs from increased cannabis use.

Cannabis does not “add another vice” to tobacco and alcohol that costs our society so much more than their taxes bring in.  Alcohol and tobacco use create huge medical bills and death.  Cannabis does not.  With three legal choices and cannabis being obviously safest, we’ll cut costs as people choose it over alcohol and tobacco, and raise tax revenues that are currently going to black marketeers.

All this without even bringing up how much money industrial hemp would bring us in a legalized cannabis world…