I wonder what perecentage of Americans actually do or have smoked pot.
The only drawback I see about legalizing it would be that the cost would probably skyrocket.

Not necessarily, well it probably depends on where you live. In Miami where pot is like half the price of a packet of fags it probably would. The farther you got from the source(s) the less it would go up. Then there is the quality issue, some of the stuff that passes for it is not much better than smoking lawn cuttings dried in the summer. (I once sold a fellow student some grass cuttings in an experiment to see if he could tell the difference. He claimed it was the best stuff he had ever had...refused to take his money back.)

Presumably you would have the same set up as with tobacco. If you want quality and purity, you have to pay for it.

In Miami I guess a crips 20 will get you probably 4 spleefs of the good stuff.

Or so Ive heard ;)

Nobody in the world pays $60 for a quarter ounce of basil, I'll tell you that. They legalize it, and I'm starting a garden.

If pot and/or other currently illegal drugs are legalized, their prices will go down. This is an economic fact.

I'm sympathetic to the civil liberty arguments for drug legalization, but I don't think that anyone has a clear understanding of the full effects such a change would have on our culture and economy. I wrote more about it here.

Michael, certainly true about the price effects on harder drugs, but as Andrew points out, pot is already VERY cheap in high production regions and ports of entry, and taxes would likely raise the price in those areas, while it most likely would go down in net price in places that are very 'dry' right now.

Pot doesn't experience the two or three orders of magnitude increase in price that cocaine or heroin do: it requires much less processing, duration of effect for quantity is much higher, and it's market demand isn't inflated by such severe addiction.

I think the macro economic effects of not bleeding off hundreds of billions to a trillion dollars a year to offshore producers out of the American economy could very well offset any productivity declines from drug legalization.
Several percentage points of GDP leaving the economy via the black market each year CAN'T be good for us, and that's the case right now.

If taxes raised the price of pot higher than it currently is, then the black market for pot wouldn't disappear. Pot could then be obtained on the black market for the current prices. Either way, pot doesn't get more expensive.

I don't see how bleeding money into foreign countries for buying drugs is any different than our other trade deficits. Some people don't like trade deficits, but there's quite a bit of disagreement as to whether they are actually harmful, and in many cases they are clearly beneficial. Of course, in the case of drugs, we're paying a high premium for them, and not really getting our money's worth.

In general, I agree with your economic assessment, but I don't think you should underestimate the potential societal impact. Anecdotally, I have known a lot of pot users, and none of them used it "moderately" in a way that didn't drastically affect their work and school lives.

Mr. Williams, I hate to break it to you, but MOST of the computer industry smokes pot, and a significant minority use prescription or illegal stimulants.

And without heroin, you can just kiss much of your record collection goodby. Take out opium and you lose The Wizard of Oz (most of the cast and crew), and much of 19th Century literature.

Ax the psychedelics and you lose much music and lit., and lost the emotive drugs like ecstasy and you've just lost electronic music, and much of the 80's.

Let's face it, humans have been altering their consciousness since the dawn of time with drugs, originally in plant form: some posit this influenced or triggered language creation.

You don't know any moderate users, because you aren't a user. I grew up Mormon, and hence never knew anyone who drank as a child.

Good point about the price of pot, it would have to be net lower.

Price would come down, but there would be other economic effects as well. We wouldn't have to spend all the taxpayer's money to prosecute and incarerate people for toking it up. Hopefully the authorities will spend that wasted revenue on somethings that will do more good, like schools, public health services, and upgrading fire/police communications. That may be a marginal amount of money, but I figure every little bit helps.

Another plus would be that states could sell through state stores or collect taxes on what would normally just circulate through the underground economy. Prices would likely come down quite a bit. With all the hydroponics and home grow operations, I would imagine that not much money is hemeraging out of the country, but I'm not *that* up on the market these days. People would still be able to grow their own (it isn't that hard), but if they can buy decent stuff conveniently and affordably, I think the home-grow crowd would end up being a boutique operation, like folks that brew their own beer.

One more possible advantage might be that legal and available pot would pull some folks away from other, much uglier drugs like meth, heroin, crack, etc. My guess is that one thing that helped promote these was when pot got much more expensive and harder to find. Why screw around with some farmer's anhydrous ammonia when you can kick back with a joint and play video baseball with a buddy?

My $0.02, for what it's worth. Here's hoping (however vainly) that all those 50-something pols will stop being such hypocrits, admit their first-hand experience and start easing back on the senseless and vindictive laws against marijuana.

Well, I'm pretty heavily involved in the computer industry, and I can guarantee you "most" of us don't smoke pot. As for the other industries, I can't speak from personal experience.

I am not a user, but I know a lot of drug users, as I said before. None of them use drugs "moderately", even though they themselves might believe that they do. Their drug use significantly affects their lives, and generally for the worse.

For every "Wizard of Oz" there are thousands of lives devestated by opiate use, and I could name three off the top of my head because I've watched it happen. I have seen several young peoples' lives destroyed by ecstacy, despite their "moderate" use. I work with high schoolers and college students, and I know the effects these drugs have.

I'm largely libertarian, and as I said I'm sympathetic to the civil liberty arguements for drug legalization, as well as to the economic arguments. But you're living in fantasyland if you deny that such legalization could have wide-reaching and unpredictable consequences. That's my point.

Michael: while I strongly disagree with David that "most computer industry types smoke pot,", there is ample evidence that it is possible to be a moderate user of even heroin, and still be a useful, productive member of society. And it still makes me cringe to say that. Heh.

If you would like more data to study on your own, I direct you to www.reason.com, where you will find quite a few articles on drug use and legalization. Check out the work of Jacob Sullum, author of SAYING YES In Defense of Drug Use.

i think pot should be legalized for the most part...i smoke it and i know that "the Government" does not have the power to stop all smoking and selling of pot no matter how hard they try. It is out there and that is something they will have to deal with.