Prisons Aff Starter Supplement

Prisons Aff – Starter Supplement

Solves Econ/Saves Money

Via Taxes

Marijuana will bring large amounts of revenue.

Jeffery Miron, June 2005, The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition - See more at:

Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year, finds a June 2005 report by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University.The report has been endorsed by more than 530 distinguished economists, who have signed an open letter to President Bush and other public officials calling for “an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition,” adding, “We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods.” Chief among the endorsing economists are three Nobel Laureates in economics: Dr. Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institute, Dr. George Akerlof of the University of California at Berkeley, and Dr. Vernon Smith of George Mason University. 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.

Government expenditure decline and tax revenue increase.

Jeffery Miron, June 2005, The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition - See more at:

Government prohibition of marijuana is the subject of ongoing debate. Advocates believe prohibition reduces marijuana trafficking and use, thereby discouraging crime, improving productivity and increasing health. Critics believe prohibition has only modest effects on trafficking and use while causing many problems typically attributed to marijuana itself. One issue in this debate is the effect of marijuana prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs, and prohibition prevents taxation of marijuana production and sale. If marijuana were legal, enforcement costs would be negligible and governments could levy taxes on the production and sale of marijuana. Thus, government expenditure would decline and tax revenue would increase. This report estimates the savings in government expenditure and the gains in tax revenue that would result from replacing marijuana prohibition with a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods. The report is not an overall evaluation of marijuana prohibition; the magnitude of any budgetary impact does not by itself determine the wisdom of prohibition. But the costs required to enforce prohibition, and the transfers that occur because income in a prohibited sector is not taxed, are relevant to rational discussion of this policy.

Legalizing Marijuana is more substantial than marijuana decriminalization

Jeffery Miron, June 2005, The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition - See more at:

The policy change considered in this report,marijuana legalization, is more substantial than marijuana decriminalization, which means repealing criminal penalties against possession but retaining them against trafficking. The budgetary implications of legalization exceed those of decriminalization for three reasons.[1] First, legalization eliminates arrests for trafficking in addition to eliminating arrests for possession. Second, legalization saves prosecutorial, judicial, and incarceration expenses; these savings are minimal in the case of decriminalization. Third, legalization allows taxation of marijuana production and sale.Tax Payers paying more than a billion dollars to keep marijuana offenders in jail.Paul Armentano, February 2007, Pot Prisoners Cost Americans $1 Billion a Year, 8/1/2014 American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That's according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses. Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders. The new report is noteworthy because it undermines the common claim from law enforcement officers and bureaucrats, specifically White House drug czar John Walters, that few, if any, Americans are incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses. In reality, nearly 1 out of 8 U.S. drug prisoners are locked up for pot.

Legalizatioin saves money and maleDale Gieringer. PH.D June 1994, Economics of Cannabis Legalization (1994) Detailed Analysis of the Benefits of Ending Cannabis Prohibition 8/1/2014

Finally, the legalization of cannabis would also permit the agriculture of hemp, a versatile source of fiber, protein, biomass and oil, which was once one of America’s top crops. Hemp production might well rival that of other leading crops such as cotton or soy beans, which are currently on the order of $ 6 - 10 billion per year. On the other side of the ledger, legalization would save the considerable economic and social costs of the current criminal prohibition system. Current federal drug enforcement programs run at $13 billion per year. State and local programs are probably of similar or greater magnitude: in California, the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated the cost of state drug enforcement programs at around $640 million per year in 1989-90, plus perhaps twice as much more in local expenditures.26 A sizable chunk of these costs involve cannabis, which accounts for 30% of drug arrests nationwide. Legalization of cannabis would also divert demand from other drugs, resulting in further savings. If legalization reduced current narcotics enforcement costs by one-third to one-fourth, it might save $6 - $9 billion per year.

Credible research concludes massive econ benefits to legalization

Minor 05 (Miron, Jeffrey A.The budgetary implications of marijuana prohibition. Marijuana Policy Project, 2005.)

Can’t estimate implementation costs of legalization-flawed studies

Evans 13 (Evans Esq, David G. "The Economic Impacts of Marijuana Legalization." (2013))

Adding to the direct costs of implementing policy reforms, legalization will cause consumption of marijuana to increase, and this increase will have direct economic costs in terms of healthcare, social services and criminal justice (14). The magnitude and cost of increased consumption can be predicted by estimating supply and demand, but historical data from local marijuana markets does not exist, and data from foreign markets fails to reflect the influence of local mores and cultural norms on consumer behavior. Existing projections of growth in marijuana demand are based on consumption patterns in the Netherlands and other regulated foreign markets, (15) where sufficient data exists to derive marijuana’s “demand elasticity”, e.g., the responsiveness of consumption rates to changes in price (16). To date, economists’ best estimates of the increase in consumption range from 75%-289% but these estimates fail to account for untested and novel pricing and taxation schemes, the underreporting of current marijuana use, or the impact of social influences on consumption (17).While dependency is a known harm of marijuana consumption that will proliferate with increases inconsumption, the costs of marijuana treatment admissions may decline with legalization since the vast majority of admissions have historically been referrals from the criminal justice system (18).

Cant estimate productivity losses-no substantive data, but there will be productivity gains

Evans 13 (Evans Esq, David G. "The Economic Impacts of Marijuana Legalization." (2013))

The marijuana advocates claim that research regarding the impact of marijuana use on job performance is inconclusive, as marijuana’s performance effects vary by job task and among users based on the setting and frequency of use as well as the user’s personal characteristics and motivation to perform (23). Similarly, they claim the connection between absenteeism or workplace accidents and marijuana use may be tenuous because research has not firmly established a causal nexus (24). Moreover, productivity losses may be negligible to the extent that the vast majority of marijuana consumers, like alcohol consumers, do not go to work intoxicated and instead reserve revelry for weeknights or weekends or other occasions that would not interfere with their work responsibilities. Crime statistics indicate that marijuana offenses account for almost half of the 1,531,251 drug arrests nationwide, and that nearly 9 out of every 10 marijuana arrests are for possession, not distribution (25). However, marijuana offenders convicted of possession account for only two-tenths of one percent (.2%) of federal inmates and just one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of state prisoners without a prior criminal record (26). Often, incarceration is due to probation or parole violations or for possession of wholesale quantities where intent to distribute could not be proved (27). Reducing the number of marijuana-related arrests and incarcerations may cause marginal growth in aggregate productivity as fewer employees who already have jobs will need to miss work for required court appearances, and incarcerated offenders will be able to participate in the job market (28). Additional gains in productivity can be expected among workers who are raising children alone due to the incarceration of a spouse, whose return from prison will permit child-rearing responsibilities to be shared between both parents, reducing the number of work days missed (29).

Via Prison Overcrowding

Drugs-prime cause of mass incarceration-stats

Stevenson 11(Bryan, Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative, Global Commission on Drug Policy, Geneva, January 25, 2011)

In the United States, the prison population has increased from 300,000 in 1972 to 2.3 million people today. One in 31 adults in the United States is in jail, prison, on probation or parole.The American government currently spends over 68 billion dollars a year on incarceration.Drug Policy and the incarceration of low-level drug offenders is the primary cause of mass incarceration in the United States. 40% of drug arrests are for simple possession of marijuana.There is also evidence that drug enforcement has diverted resources from law enforcement ofviolent crimes and other threats to public safety.Incarceration of low-level drug offenders has criminogenic effects that increase the likelihood of recidivism and additional criminal behavior.Enforcement of drug policy against low-level users and small scale trafficking has been racially biased and fueled social and political antagonisms that have undermined support of drugpolicy.Growing evidence indicates that drug treatment and counseling programs are far more effectivein reducing drug addiction and abuse than is incarceration.Needle exchange, compulsory treatment, education, counseling, drug substitutes likeMethadone or Naxolene have proved highly effective in reducing addiction, overdose and thespread of HIV and Hepatitis C.The last three decades have witnessed a global increase in the criminalization of improper druguse. Criminalization has resulted in increased use of harsh punitive sanctions imposed on drug offenders and dramatic increases in rates of incarceration. These policies have had limitedimpact on eliminating or reducing illegal drug use and may have resulted in adverseconsequences for social and community health. The criminal justice system has proved to bean ineffective forum for managing or controlling many aspects of the drug trade or the problemof illegal drug usage. In recent years, some progress has been reported when governingbodies have managed drug use and addiction as a public health problem which requirestreatment, counseling and medical interventions rather than incarceration. Most experts agreethat drug-related HIV infection, the spread of infectious diseases like Hepatitis C and relatedpublic health concerns cannot be meaningfully addressed through jail and imprisonment andare often aggravated by policies which are primarily punitive. This paper briefly reviews this3issue and identifies some of the costs of over-reliance on incarceration and outlines newstrategies

Mass Incarceration Costs too High- Crime Rate Unrelated, Legalisation Key

TheEconomist 13 (August 17, “One Nation, Behind Bar”;

AS DRUG dealers go, Ricky Minor was hardly a kingpin. Police found 1.2 grams of methamphetamine in his home—enough to keep a heavy user high for a day. They also found matches, acetone and cold medicine, so the Drug Enforcement Administration guessed that he could have made another 192 grams of the stuff. Mr Minor, a cash-strapped addict, pleaded guilty. He had never been to prison before, but he had convictions for selling small quantities of marijuana and cocaine, shouting at a neighbour who had poisoned his dog, shoving a police officer and driving while intoxicated. He was condemned to life in prison without any chance of parole. The judge said the sentence was wildly excessive, but under mandatory-minimum sentencing laws, he had to impose it. This week Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s attorney-general, declared that America has an “unnecessarily large prison population” (see article). That is putting it mildly. The Land of the Free has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of its prisoners. In all, about 2.2m Americans fester behind bars: one in every 107 adults. Minor crimes are punished severely, serious ones ferociously. The cost is staggering: $80 billion a year, or $35,000 per inmate; not to mention “human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate”, as Mr Holder put it. America’s prisons are often harsher than those in other rich countries (see article), as the protests against solitary confinement in California illustrate (see article). For decades American politicians have assumed that mass incarceration works, wooing voters with ever-tougher sentencing laws. The dramatic fall in crime since the 1990s has persuaded many that they were right. Locking up the worst criminals while they are young, fit and dangerous clearly makes America safer. But keeping sad cases like Mr Minor incarcerated past pensionable age serves little purpose. Prison has diminishing returns, and America long ago passed the point where jailing more people makes sense. As Mr Holder said, the system is “both ineffective and unsustainable”. Not before time, he has proposed some ways to reform it. First, federal prosecutors will no longer charge “low-level, non-violent” drug suspects with offences that carry “draconian” mandatory-minimum sentences. These are often triggered by the weight of drugs involved; by not disclosing this fact, prosecutors will let judges decide what punishment might fit the unique circumstances of each case. Second, elderly prisoners who have served much of their sentence and pose no great threat will be released earlier. Third, more offenders will be given drug treatment or community service instead of prison. Finally, Mr Holder will try to remove some of the obstacles that stop ex-convicts from finding jobs. Federal prisons, which Mr Holder controls, hold only 10% of America’s prisoners; the rest are in state or county lock-ups over which he has little authority. Nonetheless, his reforms are important, and should be applauded. For one thing, the federal-prison population has grown by an alarming 800% since 1980. For another, Mr Holder’s reforms complement action in the states, 17 of which reduced the number of people they locked up between 2000 and 2010 while still reducing crime. The boldest reformers have been conservative states such as Texas. Now that Mr Obama’s man has pitched in, penal reform could perhaps become a bipartisan crusade, uniting budget hawks with bleeding hearts. Be bolder, Holder Since so many of America’s prisoners are drug offenders, legalising drugs would help a lot. Even if they balk at that, both the federal government and the more punitive states should make more use of cheap, effective alternatives to prison, such as electronic tagging. Lawmakers should scrap mandatory-minimum laws and let judges judge. In general, shorter sentences are better; they deter nearly as much as long ones and cost far less. Some of the money saved could be spent on better detection, which really does deter. The aim should be reducing crime, not taking revenge. Mr Holder’s ideas have met with little opposition: he could have gone much further.