(Photo Credit: jaypeg21 via flickr)

With the federal budget deficit continuing to explode, and states like Florida and California facing unprecedented budget shortfalls, we continue to spend billions of dollars a year locking up our friends and relatives for enjoying something that is demonstrably less dangerous than alcohol or nicotine (or any number of drugs that made their way through the FDA approval process only to kill or harm the sick). Perhaps it’s time for a change in America's marijuana policy?

Enter the LA Times’ Patt Morrison and an opinion piece entitled “Should We Tax Pot?” Morrison starts off well, making the following connection:

“Friday is the 75th anniversary of the end of a nationwide ban on a substance that millions of Americans broke the law and bought anyway: liquor. Criminalizing it turned out to have complications so enormous and expensive that in 1933 a new president, faced with a profound economic crisis, wanted it legalized and taxed again. …

… A couple of years ago, the legalize-it forces estimated that the U.S. marijuana crop was worth $35 billion a year. California's share of that was $13.8 billion. If the number is even half that, any tax windfall, on top of money saved by not prosecuting marijuana crimes, would mean a bonanza, wouldn't it?”

Yeah, wouldn’t it? Sadly no, Morrison tells us. Who harshed Morrison’s buzz? That would be Rosalie Pacula, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation and co-director of its drug policy research center. Pacula sucks the life out of Morrison’s “pipe dream” with the following argument (quoted directly, though the bullets are mine):

• Recent research shows marijuana to be more addictive than was thought.
• Because marijuana is illegal, and because its users often smoke tobacco or use other drugs, teasing out marijuana's health effects and associated costs is almost impossible.
• More people would smoke it regularly if it were legal — Pacula estimates 60% to 70% of the population as opposed to 20% to 30% now — and the social costs would rise.
• She takes issue with figures from Harvard's Jeffrey Miron, among others, who says that billions spent on enforcing marijuana laws could all be saved by legalization.
• Rand's research, Pacula says, finds that many marijuana arrests are collateral — say, part of DUI checks or curfew arrests — and many arrestees already have criminal records, meaning they might wind up behind bars for something else even if marijuana were legal.
• Legalization also wouldn't do away with pot-related crime entirely. There would likely be a black market, just as there is in other regulated substances, such as cigarettes and liquor. That means police and prosecution, which cost money.
• As to the tax benefit, that's partly a function of the price point for legalized pot. If everyone could legally grow and consume dope, then the crop probably wouldn't be worth $35 billion and the taxes wouldn't be anything to write home about.
• "I have a hard time believing the tax revenue would offset the full cost of regulating and enforcing the legal market," Pacula concludes.

There is no polite way to say this: Pacula’s argument is complete and total horseshit.

Sorry to be tedious, but let’s go through it point by point:

• Recent research shows marijuana to be more addictive than was thought.

USA Today says so. In an earlier article, the LA Times linked this newfound addictive quality to increased potency. However, dig into these stories and you start to notice the BS piling up. There is no reason to believe that weed is more addictive than, say, caffeine. After all, the “withdrawal” effects noted by USA Today are about the same as quitting coffee. (Essentially, a few days of being pissed off.) The LA Times story is particularly biased, as the study referenced was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a group devoted to stopping drug abuse and keeping weed illegal.

As for citing weed potency as a negative, that’s pure spin. Increased potency means weed has gotten better over the last 20 years. In other words, you need to smoke less to get the same effect. Increased potency is a good thing … unless you’re job is to demonize marijuana. In that case, increased potency is terrible.

• Because marijuana is illegal, and because its users often smoke tobacco or use other drugs, teasing out marijuana's health effects and associated costs is almost impossible.

Actually, there have been studies on the health effects of marijuana. As it turns out, the demon weed has significant medicinal qualities. Will it give you chronic bronchitis? Perhaps. But it doesn't lead to lung cancer and also seems to be an antioxidant. Too bad studying the effects of marijuana (unless specifically looking for negative effects) has been verboten in the U.S. for decades. Perhaps the government is scared of what they might find?

• More people would smoke it regularly if it were legal — Pacula estimates 60% to 70% of the population as opposed to 20% to 30% now — and the social costs would rise.

This is clearly a made-up stat. On what basis does Pacula make this estimate? The last time 70% of the country all did something, the series finale of M*A*S*H was on. Somehow though, if we legalize weed, Grandma’s bingo parlor will become a hookah lounge. Uh-huh.

• She takes issue with figures from Harvard's Jeffrey Miron, among others, who says that billions spent on enforcing marijuana laws could all be saved by legalization.
• Rand's research, Pacula says, finds that many marijuana arrests are collateral — say, part of DUI checks or curfew arrests — and many arrestees already have criminal records, meaning they might wind up behind bars for something else even if marijuana were legal.

Please note that there is no argument here. There is a statement — “I don’t believe you, Mr. Harvard Brainiac, because I am paid to refute everything you say” — followed by something that seems like a statistic, but actually isn’t. (Can someone quantify “many” for me?) So, what did Dr. Miron say that so annoys Pacula:

“Dr. Miron's paper, ‘The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition,’ concludes:

**Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement — $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels.

**Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.”

That could pay for: “The full cost of anti-terrorism port security measures required by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002. The Coast Guard has estimated these costs, covering 3,150 port facilities and 9,200 vessels, at $7.3 billion total.”

Also, the law enforcement numbers in this area are stark. According to weed-legalization agitators NORML, 829,625 people were arrested for pot possession in 2006, meaning “a marijuana smoker is arrested every 38 seconds in America.” Were all of them also driving with a beer in their lap? Doubtful. A quick check of the Department of Justice’s website reveals the U.S. spent $2.5 billion on the DEA alone in 2006. With weed arrests comprising almost half of all drug arrests in America, I think I smell savings!

• Legalization also wouldn't do away with pot-related crime entirely. There would likely be a black market, just as there is in other regulated substances, such as cigarettes and liquor. That means police and prosecution, which cost money.

Yes, there would likely still be a black market, just like there is for alcohol and cigarettes. However, that black market would be a mere fraction of the black market that exists now. What Pacula is describing in negative terms would be a terrific improvement over the situation we find ourselves in now. God help us if we ever actually improved anything in this country.

• As to the tax benefit, that's partly a function of the price point for legalized pot. If everyone could legally grow and consume dope, then the crop probably wouldn't be worth $35 billion and the taxes wouldn't be anything to write home about.

If everyone could grow weed at home, no one would ever buy it. Of course! Just like if people could grow tomatoes at their house, no one would ever buy Ragu. Americans are shoppers. We don’t make anything for ourselves anymore. Witness 61% of the country advocating the death of the auto industry rather than a bailout, reasoning that we can just buy our cars from Japan instead of making them ourselves. Would some people grow pot? Sure. Would many more buy it? Yes. It’s the American way.

Also, Pacula seems to forget her earlier statement that the whole damn country would be smoking if weed were legal. Wouldn’t that bump up the tax revenues? Or was that just bullshit?

• "I have a hard time believing the tax revenue would offset the full cost of regulating and enforcing the legal market," Pacula concludes.

I have a hard time believing that Pacula has a fully developed human brain. That doesn’t mean she’s operating on chimp power. It means that I have a hard time believing she’s thinking. Perhaps my “belief” in this matter is not related to the facts?

After allowing Pacula to propagandize throughout her column, Morrison then wraps up her piece with what may be the dumbest conclusion ever.

“No golden pot tax in the pot at the end of the rainbow, then? Pacula left me thinking that the unintended consequences of legalizing marijuana in 2009 might match the unintended consequences of outlawing liquor in 1919.”

Legalizing weed will not suddenly cause the same set of problems that banning alcohol did. Those problems already exist RIGHT NOW! How can anyone believe that the mistakes made enacting one prohibition will be repeated by the repealing of another? This makes zero sense. It’s weak journalism and a flat-out stupid thing to say.

Patt Morrison must have been high when she wrote that.