Is this the answer??

[1ScareCrow3]

I found this today and wanted to share it and get some of your opinions on the subject. I also wanted to include a poll but couldn't figure out how...here's what my poll would have asked.


If drugs were legalized and taxed would you....

A. Do more

B. Do about the same amount

C. Bitch about the price and how the government is fucking us harder.


And now on to the article.....(please any and all thought will be appreciated)


Paying With Our Sins

Now is the time to legalize (and tax) drugs, prostitution, and gambling


The Obama administration's drug czar made news recently by saying he wanted to end all loose talk about a "war on drugs." "We're not at war with people in this country," said the czar, Gil Kerlikowske, who favors forcing people into treatment programs rather than jail cells.
Here's a better idea—and one that will help the federal and state governments fill their coffers: Legalize drugs and then tax sales of them. And while we're at it, welcome all forms of gambling (rather than just the few currently and arbitrarily allowed) and let prostitution go legit too. All of these vices, involving billions of dollars and consenting adults, already take place. They just take place beyond the taxman's reach.
Legalizing the world's oldest profession probably wasn't what Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, meant when he said that we should never allow a crisis to go to waste. But turning America into a Sin City on a Hill could help President Obama pay for his ambitious plans to overhaul health care, invest in green energy, and create gee-whiz trains that whisk "through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour." More taxed vices would certainly lead to significant new revenue streams at every level. That's one of the reasons 52 percent of voters in a recent Zogby poll said they support legalizing, taxing and regulating the growth and sale of marijuana. Similar cases could be made for prostitution and all forms of gambling.
In terms of economic stimulation and growth, legalization would end black markets that generate huge amounts of what economists call "deadweight losses," or activity that doesn't contribute to increased productivity. Rather than spending precious time and resources avoiding the law (or, same thing, paying the law off), producers and consumers could more easily get on with business and the huge benefits of working and playing in plain sight.
Consider prostitution. No reliable estimates exist on the number of prostitutes in the United States or aggregate demand for their services. However, Nevada, one of the two states that currently allows paid sex acts, is considering a tax of $5 dollars for each transaction. State Senator Bob Coffin argues further that imposing state taxes on existing brothels could raise $2 million a year (at present, brothels are allowed only in rural counties, which get all the tax revenue), and legalizing prostitution in cities like Las Vegas could swell state coffers by $200 million annually .
A conservative extrapolation from Nevada to the rest of the country would easily mean billions of dollars annually in new tax revenues. Rhode Island, which has never explicitly banned prostitution, is on the verge of finally doing so—but with the state facing a $661 million budget shortfall, perhaps fully legalizing the vice (and then taking a cut) would be the smarter play.
Every state except Hawaii and Utah already permits various types of gambling, from state lotteries to racetracks to casinos. In 2007, such activity generated more than $92 billion in reciepts, much of which was earmarked for the elderly and education. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, has introduced legislation to repeal the federal ban on online gambling; and a 2008 study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimates that legalizing cyberspace betting alone could yield as much as $5 billion a year in new tax revenues. Add to that expanded opportunities for less exotic forms of wagering at, say, the local watering hole and the tax figure would be vastly larger.
Based on estimates from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend at least $64 billion a year on illegal drugs. And according to a 2006 study by the former president of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Jon Gettman, marijuana is already the top cash crop in a dozen states and among the top five crops in 39 states, with a total annual value of $32 billion.
A 2005 cost benefit analysis of marijuana prohibition by Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist, calculated that ending marijuana prohibition would save $7.7 billion in direct state and federal law enforcement costs while generating more than $6 billion a year if it were taxed at the same rate as alcohol and tobacco. The drug czar's office says that a gram of pure cocaine costs between $100 and $150; a gram of heroin almost $400; and a bulk gram of marijuana between $15 and $20. Those transactions are now occurring off the books of business and government alike.
As the history of alcohol prohibition underscores, there are also many non-economic reasons to favor legalization of vices: Prohibition rarely achieves its desired goals and instead increases violence (when was the last time a tobacco kingpin was killed in a deal gone wrong?) and destructive behavior (it's hard enough to get help if you're a substance abuser and that much harder if you're a criminal too). And by policing vice, law enforcement is too often distracted at best or corrupted at worst, as familiar headlines about cops pocketing bribes and seized drugs attest. There's a lot to be said for treating consenting adults like, well, adults.
But there is an economic argument as well, one that Franklin Roosevelt understood when he promised to end Prohibition during the 1932 presidential campaign. "Our tax burden would not be so heavy nor the forms that it takes so objectionable," thundered Roosevelt, "if some reasonable proportion of the unaccountable millions now paid to those whose business had been reared upon this stupendous blunder could be made available for the expense of government."
Roosevelt could also have talked about how legitimate fortunes can be made out of goods and services associated with vice. Part of his family fortune came from the opium trade, after all, and he and other leaders during the Depression oversaw a generally orderly re-legalization of the nation's breweries and distilleries.
There's every reason to believe that today's drug lords could go legit as quickly and easily as, say, Earnest and Julio Gallo, the venerable winemakers who once sold their product to Al Capone. Indeed, here's a (I hope soon-to-be-legal) bet worth making: If marijuana is legalized, look for the scion of a marijuana plantation operation to be president within 50 years.
Legalizing vice will not balance government deficits by itself—that will largely depend on spending cuts, which seem beyond the reach of all politicians. But in a time when every penny counts and the economy needs stimulation, allowing prostitution, gambling and drugs could give us all a real lift.

So what do you think? I apologize that half or the article is about prostitution and gambling but I felt it was pertinent.

[ex-junkie]

Originally Posted by 1ScareCrow3

If drugs were legalized and taxed would you....

A. Do more

B. Do about the same amount

C. Bitch about the price and how the government is fucking us harder.

A. i wouldnt take them
B. i dont take them
C. id bitch and moan about all the drugfucked people running around town being dickheads basically. not everyone can handle their drugs, and some people are a proper headfuck to be around when theyre on them. i dont think i deserve to have such headfucks around myself or my child.

as for the rest of the article...

ughz. prostitutes make fuck all as it is, so legalizing it is just going to make them earn less. prostitution shouldnt be legal, it would be condoning people to cheat on their partners, increase the risk of STDs, and lets face it, if prostitution was legal then the social stigma attached would be lifted, and people would see this as a justification as to why its ok to see one/many.

also for the gambling, ive seen little old ladies putting their life savings into pokie machines, unable to break the habit, leaving their dogs tied up outside the pub all day whimpering.

all of it should be illegal, and there is just no sense in wanting things like this to be legal in the first place. it hurts more people than it benefits.

this world is already fucked up because of consumerism, and introducing the above things into the equation, just to make more money for the government is fucking sadistic. illicit sex, money and drugs is not the be all and end all of life, and its definitely not the answer in a world that is already defunct of morals.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Thanks for your honest opinion on this..

[cannabis-sam]

ughz. prostitutes make fuck all as it is, so legalizing it is just going to make them earn less. prostitution shouldnt be legal, it would be condoning people to cheat on their partners, increase the risk of STDs, and lets face it, if prostitution was legal then the social stigma attached would be lifted, and people would see this as a justification as to why its ok to see one/many.

You're starting to talk like a prohibitionist now. The reason to legalize prostitution is to introduce safer conditions for working girls and remove the profession from organised crime decreasing people trafficking.

It would actually decrease the risk of STD's because of regulation inside the industry that you currently don't get with underground prostitution, condoms would be mandatory, and girls would get regular sexual health check ups.

Prostition is common place already, and legalizing it would not nessessarily increase the use of prostition, anyone who wants to pay for sex can, the prohibition of it doesn't make a difference it just leads to poorer conditions for working girls.

Also minumum wage would apply if the industry was regulated so prostitutes would most likely get paid more anyway, as well as contributing tax.

I'm not saying I agree with it, I still think it should be looked down upon, stigmatized etc but handling it through the criminal justice system, like with drugs is not the way to go, it just makes criminals very rich and working girls poor and unhappy.

C. id bitch and moan about all the drugfucked people running around town being dickheads basically. not everyone can handle their drugs, and some people are a proper headfuck to be around when theyre on them. i dont think i deserve to have such headfucks around myself or my child.

Yes not everone can handle their drugs, but the prohibiton of drugs doens't prevent them being used, it only makes it more dangerous for the people who choose to use drugs and doesn't stop anybody who can't handle drugs taking them.

The logic that people need to be punished to stop negative behaviours is not one that works in reality as alcohol prohibition in the 20's taught us.

Basic psychology says that positive reinforcement is a much better tool for changing negative behaviour than negative reinforcement is.

[ex-junkie]

where im from, theyre making 50 bucks an hour, 35 for half an hour. that is their cut. minimum wage would result in a serious paycut for these girls.

condoms are also mandatory.

i just cant see the logic in drug legalization. people want it for cheaper, cleaner drugs, to avoid criminal punishment for their actions, and for the right to obliterate themselves basically. why should someone like me care about any of the above?

[cannabis-sam]

So you think drug users should be sent to prison? Punished? for something that harms only themselves. Apart from alcohol, and amphetamines, drugs really don't do much if any harm to anyone else apart from the user them self. Because SWIM chooses to smoke cannabis a few times a week in the privacy of his own home, does that warrant removing SWIM's freedom? Or because SWIM enjoys taking MDMA at the weekends, doing no harm to anybody, does that warrant possible jail time? Name one reason why you think SWIM should be punished for using these relatively harmless substances (not saying their completely harmless but when compared to many other risk we take in life, the risk is comparitavely small.

I don't think by legalizing drugs it means making them cheaper, or not substantially cheaper at least. Clean drugs of course, think about how much suffering is caused to families when someone overdoses on some unusually pure heroin, because unlike in a regulated market, drug users have to put up with unsafe products of unkown amounts. Much of the damage to the viens of a hard drug user is down to the contaminats within. Not so much the drug itself.

In countries where they have to some extent legalized drugs, the Netherlands for example (in regards to cannabis at least) statistics showed that the USA and the UK had much higher rates of drug use than the Netherlands. So to say prohibition is keeping use down is just untrue, or at least it isn't a significant amount. Most people who want to use drugs use them.

Also let's not forget the huge profits organised crime is making from prohibition, all the violence caused in mexico by the cartels, what happened when they ended alcohol prohibition? Over night Al Capone and the gangs running the alcohol rackets disapeared. At the end of alcohol prohibition there was a massive drop in violent crime, little increase in the rates of use and a big drop in deaths caused by dangerous forms of alcohol like moonshine.

You can honestly justify all of this, all the billions of pounds in law enforcement, all the deaths, all the crime. You can honestly justify this for what? less safe drugs, and abosolutely zero progress in reducing the rates of use.

The way to stop people causing problems on drugs is eduction not punishment.

The argument for prohibition is extremely weak, and I don't think there's one argument for it when you look at the problems it causes.

.......

Oh and finally in regards to prostitution on this side of the pond, watching a police program recently they make £15 for oral sex and £40 for penetrative it's not a lot, and due to not having regulation girls being beaten, raped and robbed is not uncommon. It's sad you think that these girls don't deserve a little better. Like some form of protection, some form of regulation.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Well-put and poignant....

[ex-junkie]

removed.

ive agreed to disagree basically.

[old hippie 56]

Here is what cowboy thinks:

http://laist.com/2007/08/08/stoners_demand.php

While Sacramento scrambles to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for public transportation and other programs around the state, a serious group of underground marijuana professionals are offering to pay at least a billion dollars in taxes, if only California would legalize pot.

A coalition of California marijuana growers and dealers has offered Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger one billion dollars to solve the current state budget crisis. The group, calling itself Let Us Pay Taxes makes the offer through its web site LetUsPayTaxes.com. The offer comes at a time when the California legislature is deadlocked on a new budget and California has stopped issuing checks for vitally needed social services. Legislators are currently arguing over which programs will be cut in order to balance the budget.

“It is ridiculous that California can’t pay its bills,” said spokesman Clifford Schaffer. “It is a tragedy that they will cut badly needed services and programs such as medical care for the elderly and prison drug treatment when the money to fund all these programs and more is there and available. Everyone who is currently waiting for a check from the state should be enraged at this foolishness.”

Regulation and taxation of marijuana could produce six billion dollars in additional tax revenue, according to economic studies linked from their web site LetUsPayTaxes.com. In addition, it could save up to ten billion dollars in enforcement costs. “That is a conservative estimate,” said Schaffer. “By other estimates, the revenues could be five times that. The economists are with us all the way on this one. Marijuana prohibition is an economic disaster.”

One thing the Prop 215 medical marijuana dispensary craze has shown - people are willing to pay far more for legal marijuana than ever expected.

Our sources tell us that a bag of high quality "reefer" that would be sold on the street for $50 for an eighth of an ounce was being sold for $75-80 in most dispensaries.

If there was a $25 tax on an eighth of an ounce of marijuana, like there seems to be on medical marijuana, the government would reap $3,200 per pound in taxes. To make $1 billion in taxes, California would have to sell about 320,000 pounds of the green stuff, the equivalent of 14 tons.

It seems like a lot of pot until you realize that every week it seems theres a story of a ton of weed being discovered in a truck over here or a half ton of weed being nabbed by the cops over there. Which makes us assume that there are tons and tons of marijuana being smoked and sold every day. Thus, the theory that pot could save Cali could be true.

Too bad we have a Governor in office who was perfectly happy smoking weed when he was younger, and saw first hand that it did not hinder him from achieving wild success, but who now has no interest in sharing that experience regardless of what the people who he was elected to represent think, and regardless of the fact that the harmless plant could very well save the world - or at least the budget.

Political girlie men are the worst.

[Burnt]

I personally don't like the argument that drugs should be legal because then we could tax them to fulfill budget deficiets.

Drugs should be legal because its a human right to decide what you put into your body end of story.

The tax thing is just some lame argument because the real question is why are governments in such deficiets in the first place?

[Sven99]

Sure Burnt, but lets fight the battles we can win. We have much better chances of persuading average joe that prohibition is a waste of money than we do persuading him that drug use is a human right

[Samadhi]

Gonzo has an answer; stop trying to market experiences.

(they=drugs in this equation)

They should be accessable, but they shouldn't come bundled up with a big fucking smiley face on them.

They are things to be stumbled into, not things to plan... like a trip to hawaii.

They come with a price, an equal and opposite reaction dithering to each end of the spectrum, cutting it's losses/profits as it sees fit to accommodate the market.

the only denominator in the equation that nobody decides to look at is the human equation.

Drugs will always exist as long as people feel the need for them to, legalizing, regalizing and defragmentize it fifty ways to the constitution but the end result is

you...
and
substance.

drugs just cut away the middleman of social fore-fronts.

It's an odd philosophy to see but it will hopefully not be seen before wal-mart starts slapping a smile with every bindle of heroin.

but who knows, i could be way off....

[old hippie 56]

See your point, reminds me of the time when some states was pushing for gambling. The states that has the gambling revenue now is no better financially sound as the rest of them that don't. The states would just find other things to waste the money on! So damn if we do or damn if we don't...

[Samadhi]

you only run into you.

just as...

the man runs into the man

the man- without ego= you?

there is no answer yet and i'll be fucked if it's my job to sort this mess out.