Originally Posted by kane

Here is what is wrong with your theory.

Take your example. The tax on $100 worth of weed is $10. So the government is up $10 on the sale. Great.

Now if it is illegal and you get caught. Say you get a $500 fine. There are court costs in that fine and if you fight it they will provide you with a lawyer. Chances are most if not all of these fees will be picked up by the tax payers. So you have enough weed on you to send you to jail for 6 months. No prob. It costs around 35K a year to house a prisoner. So it just cost the government around 17.5K to jail you. Minus your $500 fine and and assuming you paid your court costs and your own lawyer the government is now only down $17,000. Add in the fact that you will probably have parole when you get out they have to pay a guy for that so now they are down that money as well - unless, again you pay for it.

Sure prisons are a business. Who gets paid? The company that owns/operates the prisons. Who pays them? The government. Where does the government get their money? I think you know the answer to that last one.

Cops are paid the same whether they are writing a ticket for speeding, sitting at a doughnut shop or working a drug sting so it doesn't cost them any more to go after other criminals than it does people selling weed. It actually probably cost more to go after those that sell weed because those types of operations tend rack up a lot of overtime.

So the math is simple.

Sell pot and be +$10
Or prosecute it and be down around - $17,000

Am I missing something?