Reply to "We the People"s Legalized Marijuana Helps the Economy....

I’m feeling your argument, Miss Gomez. Federal legalization of recreational marijuana could bring about so many great opportunities for this country.  Before I begin, let me clearly state that I am all for this. However, there are several terrible road blocks in why it’s going to be a true struggle for political figures to get their heads out of their asses and make this happen. From 1970 to 2014, the percentage of inmates locked in federal prisons for non-violent drug related charges rose from just 16% to 50.1%. Why such a steady, dramatic increase? Good, ole Nixon and the War on Drugs, that’s why. In 1971, Nixon declared rising drug abuse as “public enemy number one”. This declaration set into motion a series of new regulations in the effort of eradicating drugs from the streets of our nation. These motions included tougher laws and punishments for drug offences. You didn’t have to traffic pot by the pounds to have the book thrown at you. Something as small as a half inch long roach in your car ashtray could get you 2 years. Obviously these drastic measures have never worked. Drug abuse in this country is steadily increasing and until we start treating people as addicts instead of criminals, we are never going to see a decrease in abuse. Our inmate population has risen to outlandish numbers. Federal prisons make millions off these petty drug offenders. Judges have been accused of handing off harsh lengthy prison terms to petty drug offenders that come from underprivileged neighborhoods (the kind of kids who can’t afford real attorneys and get stuck with an over worked and under paid public defender who could really give two shits less) in exchange for under the table pay outs from the companies that run these prisons. The more inmates they have, the more grant money the government provides. Trust me when I say, that money is in no way being spent on inmates. The system is choreographed to benefit these assholes. Let’s say tomorrow marijuana is made recreationally legal on a federal level. Would all of those inmates serving sentences for marijuana be released? They should be. However, certain people running these prisons are never going to allow that. They would not only see a dramatic drop in their current populations, but the lack of sentencing in the future would continue to keep their numbers low. This means less cash flow, and that’s just not an option for these crooks.

The amount of tax’s that could be collected from this could take care of so many issues for this country. We could pay our teachers better competitive wages. We could use it to fund federal rehabilitation clinics, where true addicts could go (instead of prison-maybe this is an opportunity for the prison system to make up some of their potential lost income?) to get the help they need. We could use it to help law enforcement and fire departments (neither get paid nearly what they should). The possibilities are endless and bountiful. We as the people just have to push a little bit harder to get our country there.