Pubdate: Mon, 11 Feb 2013
Source: Reporter, The (PA)
Copyright: 2013 The Reporter
Contact:  http://www.thereporteronline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3468
Author: Michael Alan Goldberg

SHOULD POT BE LEGAL IN PA.?

State Sen. Leach Makes an Economic Case for Legalizing Marijuana

For years, marijuana legalization advocates in Pennsylvania have 
trotted out argument after argument in support of their cause: 
Prohibition doesn't stop people from using the drug. Pot's not as 
harmful as legal substances like alcohol or cigarettes. Deadly street 
violence stems from marijuana's illegality. The racial disparity in 
marijuana arrests amounts to minority discrimination. Marijuana has 
scientifically proven medicinal benefits. Lives can be ruined by just 
one minor pot arrest.

But money, more than moral appeals or anything else, might talk the 
loudest in the drive to decriminalize marijuana in Pennsylvania, 
particularly in the current era of budget shortfalls and lingering 
economic uncertainty. And with financial concerns helping to fuel the 
passage of historic pot legalization laws in Colorado and Washington 
State in November - as well as the introduction of a bill in the U.S. 
House of Representatives on Tuesday that would legalize and levy an 
excise tax on the sale of the drug - perhaps now is a better time 
than ever to convince skeptical state lawmakers of the cash benefits 
of getting into the marijuana business.

At least that's what State Sen. Daylin Leach (D-17) believes.

"The economic argument, at the end of the day, will probably be the 
most effective in changing this terrible policy we've had in place 
for too long," said Leach, who represents parts of Montgomery County 
and has long been one of the state legislature's staunchest 
pro-marijuana voices.

On Monday afternoon in Harrisburg, Leach plans to unveil the details 
of a Senate bill he's introducing that would legalize the possession 
of up to an ounce of marijuana in Pennsylvania for any purpose - 
recreational, medicinal or otherwise - which essentially follows the 
lead of the new Colorado and Washington State laws. That, he 
contended, would create a sizable annual revenue source for the state 
through the regulation and taxation of the drug, as well as create a 
wealth of new jobs.

Citing data from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Leach 
said that legalizing pot would save Pennsylvania the approximately 
$325 million per year it spends on the prosecution of marijuana 
offenses. In terms of the tax revenue implications, according to 
numbers derived from the annual National Survey on Drug Use and 
Health - a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-sponsored 
state-by-state survey of marijuana usage, among other things - there 
are around one million Pennsylvanians who identify themselves as pot smokers.

"My bill doesn't set the tax rate for marijuana, but let's say for 
argument's sake that the rate is a buck a joint," said Leach. "And 
let's say that the average marijuana smoker smokes four joints a week 
- - that's about $200 a year per smoker, so that's at least $200 
million a year in tax revenue." Put together, that's just over half a 
billion dollars a year injected into the Pennsylvania budget - a 
conservative estimate, he argues.

"That's an enormous amount of money," he said, noting that it would 
dwarf the approximately one billion dollars Gov. Corbett hopes to 
raise through his new efforts to privatize Pennsylvania's liquor 
sales in order to fund state education programs via four years of 
block grants. "The governor's proposal is a one-time infusion of cash 
and then you lose that asset that generates all that revenue for the 
state every year, but that revenue from marijuana sales would flow in 
for many years to come," said Leach.

Meanwhile, he believes that the new industries that would spring up 
in conjunction with pot legalization, including the licensed growing 
and distribution operations that would provide the marijuana, as well 
as weed paraphernalia merchants, would be "huge job creators," he said.

"Just like alcohol creates a bunch of businesses - bars, beer 
distributors, even pizza shops that get money from selling sixpacks - 
the same is going to be true of marijuana," said Leach.

Leach's bill calls for marijuana to be regulated in Pennsylvania much 
like alcohol and sold legally only in state stores or through beer 
distributors. "Right now, you've gotta essentially buy it behind the 
bowling alley from some guy named 'Greenie' and you don't know what's 
in it, it could be laced with PCP or something, so with my plan it'll 
be safer, regulated and taxed, and that is so much better for 
everyone concerned," said Leach. Further, under the proposed law, 
possession of marijuana by those under 21, selling marijuana to 
minors, driving under the influence of marijuana, and using marijuana 
in public (to the extent that the use of alcohol is prohibited in 
public) would all remain illegal.

Yet despite the momentum seemingly generated by pot legalization 
victories in Colorado and Washington State - in the wake of that, 
lawmakers in a handful of other states, including Maine, Rhode 
Island, Vermont and Hawaii, are currently sponsoring bills similar to 
Leach's - Leach admits that in the shortterm, legalizing marijuana in 
Pennsylvania remains an uphill battle. Gov. Corbett, who considers 
marijuana a "gateway drug," is stridently opposed to the idea, and 
Leach's bill is going to be a tough sell to many of his colleagues in 
the state legislature.

Count state Sen. Bob Mensch (R-24), who represents parts of 
Montgomery County, among the skeptics.

"I need to see the bill to try to understand the economic argument, 
but the costs for enforcement, keeping minors from use, keeping 
schools clean, rehab, et cetera, could well be factors that outweigh 
the economic benefits," said Mensch. "It certainly is vogue to cite 
economic development for every legislative attempt, and I understand 
that impulse on this matter, but to be truly credible I believe there 
will be social, cultural and legal costs that need to also be 
considered. I doubt the economic positives will win out over all the 
costs and pain."

And though supporters of legalizing marijuana on economic grounds 
often point to a 2005 open letter signed by hundreds of economists, 
including late Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, that questioned the 
benefits of marijuana prohibition and endorsed Harvard professor 
Jeffrey Miron's findings that if marijuana was "taxed similarly to 
alcohol or tobacco, it might generate as much as $6.2 billion 
annually" in the U.S., other experts have suggested such fiscal 
benefits may be overstated.

In her 2009 testimony before the California State Assembly regarding 
a proposed marijuana legalization bill in the state, Dr. Rosalie 
Pacula of the RAND Corporation, a non-partisan think tank, said that 
a tax on the legal sale of marijuana would not eliminate the 
marijuana black market or its draw, since illicit dealers would 
charge a lower price and still make a profit. The only way to combat 
that, she said, would be to allow the price of legal marijuana to 
drop to an amount close to the costs of production, but that doing so 
"will mean a substantially smaller tax revenue than currently 
anticipated from this change in policy."

But Leach is sticking with his optimistic economic projections, and 
says that regardless of all the theories and speculation, "in about a 
year or two we will know exactly how much money Colorado and 
Washington State have generated with this, and it's not a question of 
whether there's a benefit economically. It's a question of how much."

In the meantime, he continues to court state legislators on both 
sides of the aisle to support his forthcoming bill. "I tailor it to 
my audience," said Leach. "I tell liberals, 'We could use that money 
to help poor people,' and to conservatives I say, ' We could use this 
for tax cuts.'"

A big part of his pitch is drawing a parallel to casino gaming. 
"Everyone was against gambling 30 or 40 years ago - it was the big 
sin," said Leach. "There was only one placer in the country where you 
could gamble legally, and now 48 states have gambling. And that's 
because at the end of the day, there was billions of dollars to be 
made and very little harm in it. Yes, there are people who gamble 
irresponsibly, but you can't have a policy that penalizes the 
95-percent of the people who do it responsibly. And it's the same 
with marijuana."

Leach is certain the economics of the issue will eventually win over 
the naysayers. "It's not a matter of if marijuana will be legalized 
in Pennsylvania, but when," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom