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Essay On Criminalizing Marijuana

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In the state of Texas, if caught with marijuana, also known as cannabis, weed, or hemp, on your person(s) in any shape or form, you would be arrested immediately and charged for possession. In addition to the possession charges, if you were found to have consumed it in any way, you would be arrested and charged with a DUI or DWI. Can you imagine the amount of money the government puts into criminalizing this drug? Our research consists of the economic effects of both the legalization as well as the criminalization of marijuana, specifically through government spending and budgets. Additionally, we will be explaining whether if there would be any sort of correlation between the prohibition of marijuana, government allocation on legalization, …show more content…
The criminalization of marijuana affects government budgets through entailing direct enforcement costs, in addition to preventing taxation on the production and sales of cannabis. An excellent example would begin with, the police force, also referred as the lower level of government, and the first major cost for criminalizing marijuana would be sections that would specifically pertain to the state police budgets which is solely dedicated to marijuana-related arrests and charges. When determining which arrests would be a representation of the amount that goes towards the criminalization of marijuana, therefore, it is only appropriate to count the people that are “stand-alone,” meaning those in which choose a marijuana violation rather than some unknown, random charge being the reason for the arrest in the first place. This specific problem comes across mainly for a possession of marijuana charge over the trafficking of drugs, specifically cannabis. The second major cost of criminalizing marijuana are sections that pertain to the judicial and prosecutorial budget that is solely dedicated towards marijuana-related prosecutions. The third major cost for the criminalization of marijuana are sections that pertain to the corrections budget, which is dedicated towards the incarceration of prisoners who have been charged with marijuana-related offenses. A practical indication of this part would be the fraction of prisoners that have been incarcerated for marijuana-related

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