LEGALIZING POT COULD BRING IN TREMENDOUS REVENUE

During the Super Bowl there were a couple of great examples of the
recent wave of anti-marijuana ads that have been flooding television,
magazines and movie previews.

Most of the arguments given against marijuana use were dubious at
best, quoting such statistics as "one-third of all reckless drivers
tested for drugs test positive for marijuana" making no reference to
the small number of reckless drivers actually tested for drugs, nor to
the numbers of those that were also heavily under the influence of
alcohol (singularly the most destructive legal substance known to man).

However, the most absurd of the arguments presented are those that
play on our post September 11th awareness of and increasing paranoia
about terrorism. I am in no position to challenge the assertion that
much of the money funneled into the drug market goes to support
terrorism. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority goes to
people who are involved in dangerous crimes that potentially harm/kill
innocent bystanders.

There is one fact that is constantly overlooked and intentionally not
mentioned. If marijuana were legal it would not be funding terrorism
or criminals.

A pack of 20 class-A marijuana cigarettes (the marijuana analog to
tobacco cigarettes now readily available) could not really cost more
than about fifty cents to manufacture. A producer could then sell them
for as much as five dollars a pack. That's a 900 percent profit,
something I know no businessman in his right mind could say was paltry.

The government could then charge fifteen dollars in taxes on each
pack! Thus bringing the grand total to twenty dollars for a pack of
marijuana cigarettes, which I am told is something on the order of
one-fifth of the going price on the street.

With that sort of tax revenue the government could very easily fund
any number of ludicrous wars on Iraq, any number of wars against
terrorism, and/or probably wipe every other single drug off the face
of the United States, if not the globe.

That is, of course, unless the number of people using marijuana is
also some other grossly distorted statistic.

CHRISTIAAN MITCHELL

Philosophy Senior