Currently twenty three US states have legalized the use of
medical marijuana; of those, four have legalized marijuana for recreational
use. Adding the District of Columbia, the total is brought to twenty four. This
number is subject to change as states vote to legalize marijuana to varying
degrees over the next year or so. Looking at Timothy Leary's dream of the legalization
of mind altering drugs, these last few years have seen the first steps towards
his goal. His original goal was to have thirty million users of LSD: in the
1960's that would be approximately 16% of the population of the United States.
Today with our current population these figures would be slightly higher:
staying at 16% there would need to be a little over fifty eight million users. Where
LSD and marijuana are vastly different drugs, the recent legislation has opened
a proverbial Pandora's box where other drug legalization is concerned. This
might not be as bad as it sounds however, looking at Tax figures from Colorado
over the last year marijuana sales are adding a steady stream of revenue to the
state. This revenue can then be used for public works projects such as
repairing roads, funding school programs, and many more applications. In
essence Timothy Leary's original goal is the caterpillar and our current situation
would be the moth. No one is quite sure what to do about it, yet it is still fascinating
to watch nonetheless. In the words of Ram Dass ( formerly Richard Alpert) “It
is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the
negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
If we use Colorado as a base line of what to expect were marijuana
use was legalized in Ohio, then taking a look at one month, say November of
2014, we can see just how much marijuana tax, licenses, and fees would bring to
Ohio. In November of 2014 Colorado had a net gain of almost seven and a half
million dollars in taxes alone. Another five and a half million dollars came
from cash fund transfers, making the grand total for one month of sales to be approximately
thirteen million dollars. While on state level this may not seem like too much
money, that's thirteen million dollars taken out of the pockets of drug
dealers. If the trend in Colorado continues, then we can expect a large
increase from this year to next year. If we were to compare 2013 marijuana taxes,
licenses and fees to 2014 during November, then we would see an increase of
almost twelve hundred percent. Looking at the arrests since marijuana became legal
in Colorado we can see a steady trend downward. This does not mean however that
the police have stopped arresting people with possession of marijuana, for
example, between January and September of 2013 almost twelve hundred people
were charged with possession of less than two ounces. It is safe to say that in
Ohio we could expect to see similar numbers. The police would still have an
important role to play in the legalization of marijuana here in Ohio as well,
for instance it would still be illegal to grow and distribute marijuana without
a license and the penalty would be severe.
If marijuana were to be legalized in Ohio it would make the
local smoking spots obsolete, however if someone chose to smoke in public they
would have to obey the No-Smoking signs.
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