{"id":10049,"date":"2010-02-25T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/the-budgetary-impact-of-drug-legalization\/"},"modified":"2010-02-25T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T12:00:00","slug":"the-budgetary-impact-of-drug-legalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/libertarianism\/the-budgetary-impact-of-drug-legalization.php","title":{"rendered":"The Budgetary Impact of Drug Legalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My latest estimates of how drug legalization would affect government spending and tax revenue are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economics.harvard.edu\/faculty\/miron\/files\/budget%202010%20Final.pdf\">here<\/a>.&nbsp; A quick summary:<\/p><blockquote><p>The report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $48.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $33.1 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would accrue to the federal government. Approximately $13.7 billion of the savings would results from legalization of marijuana, $22.3 billion from legalization of cocaine and heroin, and $12.8 from legalization of other drugs.<\/p><\/blockquote><blockquote><p>The report also estimates that drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $34.3 billion annually, assuming legal drugs are taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco. Approximately $6.4 billion of this revenue would result from legalization of marijuana, $23.9 billion from legalization of cocaine and heroin, and $4.0 billion from legalization of other drugs.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Two things to note:<\/p><p>The overall magnitudes are not huge; legalization would not materially affect the U.S. fiscal situation.&nbsp; And only about one-third of the savings comes from marijuana, the only drug with any chance of being legalized in the near future.<\/p><p>The fact that legalization would reduce government expenditure and raise tax revenue is among the least significant arguments for legalization.&nbsp; Far more important benefits are increased freedom for drugs users, reduced crime, improved public health, greater respect for civil liberties, and lower violence and corruption in source countries.<\/p><p>Aside: See <a href=\"http:\/\/wyden.senate.gov\/issues\/Legislation\/wyden-gregg\/offsets_handout.pdf\">here<\/a> for a different proposal to legalize and tax \"vice\" (bottom paragraph).&nbsp; Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/capitalgainsandgames.com\/\">Bruce Barlett<\/a> for the pointer.<\/p><div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/c167a_6379328854053402400-2760967257449972906?l=jeffreymiron.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My latest estimates of how drug legalization would affect government spending and tax revenue are here.&nbsp; A quick summary:The report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $48.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $33.1 billion &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/libertarianism\/the-budgetary-impact-of-drug-legalization.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-libertarianism"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}