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Summary Critique Debbie Amezcua“MarijuanAmerica: Inside America’s Last Growth Industry” by Marc Binelli“Pot Pioneer States, Native American Tribes Mimic Colorado Marijuana Laws” by PBSIn 1996 California passed a law ( thanks to Proposition 215) which made it legal for patients and their designated caregivers to possess and grow marijuana for their personal use with a given recommendation or approval of a California-licensed physician. With this being done, it opened the door which is leading The United States a step closer to fully decriminalizing the use and distribution of marijuana. In 2012, Colorado was the first state to pass a law (known as Amendment 64) that allowed for recreational use (the law that allowed its medical use was passed in 2000). With recreational use in Colorado, you must be 21 or older to use it, the same laws as alcohol consumption apply to marijuana. You cannot show up to work or drive a motorized vehicle while under the influence. People are allowed to grow up to 3 plants, but they must be kept in the room that they are grown in, there is a permit you must acquire before doing so. People that are leaving their homes or dispensaries are allowed to have up to 1 ounce of them before any authority can question them. With these state laws being passed, it puts marijuana in the grey area when it comes to the federal laws. Marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. In the Rolling Stone article they briefly discuss how this is a grey area for California users and growers- they said that Pot is illegal at a federal level but legal to consume with a prescription, and still illegal to grow (at the current time in 2010). This made it very difficult for people that were growing at the time to distribute. They had to be extremely careful with sharing their location and identify because at any moment the DEA could fly in and sweep their crops. Rolling Stone did a great job at being descriptive and informative about how the caretakers took care of business. With caretaking marijuana plants that is still the case today for the most part because it is still against the federal law, but in 2009 the Obama administration sent a memo to federal prosecutors encouraging them not to prosecute people who distribute marijuana for medical purposes in accordance with the law according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. With the Obama administration doing this, there is now 23 states that have some sort of law that is allowing the use of medical marijuana, and 17 trying to get a law passed. In the Rolling Stone article the author stated that legalizing marijuana could save $13 billion annually in prohibition costs (including cops and prisons) and raise $7 billion in annual revenues if marijuana was taxed. With Colorado becoming the first state to have marijuana both medically and recreationally used, they had an analyst budget the outcome of the distribution of marijuana and this is what they came up with: “Colorado could generate as much as a total of $60 million in saving and revenue. $12 million dollars of annual savings in criminal justice costs, $24 million in excise tax revenue, $14.5 million in local tax revenue, as well as create several hundred new jobs.” This is what they summed up right as Colorado legalized this, after a year there is proof and actual numbers of what the tax revenue was; “Data released by the state Department of Revenue reveal that tax revenue from retail marijuana sales amounted to $40.9 million between January 2014 and October 2014, not including revenue from medical marijuana and licenses and fees” (). This is what can happen in one state only, imagine if all the states and the federal courts jumped in this wagon, it would help the United States out immensely. Our nation’s crime rate would go down due to the fact that people are not getting arrested for possession or consumption of marijuana, which would make law enforcers focus on bigger problem, especially when it comes to drugs like heroin and meth. In fact, came up with actual numbers after a year of marijuana being decriminalized in Colorado; “According to data from the Colorado Court System, marijuana possession arrests have dropped 84% since 2010. In 2010, 9,011 people were arrested for marijuana possession. Using the same data we are projecting 1,464 possession arrests for 2014. Given that arrests such as these cost roughly $300 to adjudicate, it is reasonable to infer that the state is saving millions in adjudicatory costs for possession cases alone in 2014 compared to 2010. Over the same period, arrests for cultivating and distributing marijuana have also dropped by more than 90%.” With this evidence it proves that decriminalizing marijuana will only bring positive change to our community and potentially help us get out of the debt that America faces. On the other hand, in the short on PBS “Pot Pioneer…” brings up a good point arguing the taxation on marijuana. On the black market you can get an ounce of marijuana for $180 dollars and through a dispensary it would cost (depending on what strand and dispensary you go to) $236 per ounce, it’s almost double, which for people who have medical reasons for using can become a real struggle if they’re constantly needing to buy in order to keep their health condition at ease. For people using recreationally, it may be a burden to pay extra, but the fact they won’t get arrested for using and have a place where they can buy it legally is worth paying the extra amount. In the Rolling Stone article they discuss how there is an over abundant amount of marijuana being grown, so finding people to distribute is a painful process for a decent price as well. But in California, according to the article, there is a bunch of shops that have been opening up, in the Los Angeles area alone there was as many as 1,000 shops open. So even with the over abundant amount of marijuana being grown and groomed, there are many places where it can be sold to. Also with there being many plants being grown, it can cause for it to stay for a cheap price, so even with the tax rate being high, there is a possibility that it could still equal out to a decent price. In Colorado, it is $180 for an ounce, but you have to pay tax for it, which they broke down in “Pot Pioneer…” they stated that they tax includes a 15% excise tax, 10% marijuana tax, 2.9% state tax and 7.12% Denver tax which equals to 35.02%. That is pretty extreme for taxing marijuana but if you really think about it, it is a fair price to pay because getting arresting and paying all the fines that come with getting arrested and being put on probation would cost way more, especially if it is getting charged with the same offense multiple times. Going back to there being an abundant amount of marijuana being grown, if we are having more and more people getting licenses for caretaking of marijuana then we can potentially cut the price down for pot, and keep the tax percentage the same. The only downside for this is paying out the workers who are grooming and transporting all the bud. As we all should know by now, the government is all about making more money, and making sure that their self-interest goals are met. The United States should really consider decriminalizing marijuana in all states and having the federal law dismissed. We are slowly working our way to doing so by decriminalizing it state by state, we are almost half way there. As we have seen through the statistics through Colorado, each state would be making a lot of money from taxing marijuana as well as seeing the crime rate drop by an immense amount. These articles did a very good job at explaining the process and showing how we could benefit from us decriminalizing the use of marijuana. BIBLIOGRAPHY "Pot Pioneer: More States, Native American Tribes Mimic Marijuana Laws."PBS. PBS, 3 Jan. 2015. Web.BINELLI, Mark. "MarijuanAmerica: Inside America’s Last Growth Industry."The Rolling Stone. The Rolling Stone, 01 Apr. 2010. Web.Ballotpedia. N.p., n.d. Web. (2012)"State Medical Marijuana Laws."?NCLS. N.p., 09 Nov. 2014. Web., Joynal. "A Research Proposal: Research to Identify the Reasons behind Reducing Retail Sales during the Care Taker Government for Last Two Years."?SSRN Electronic Journal SSRN Journal?(n.d.): n. pag.. Web. ................
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