Its not just about the tax revenue, it is about the multiplier effect that those dollars would have if they were being put back into the economy rather than being put into the hands of drug lords.
I'll give two illustrations:
Me > store that sells marijuana > pays its employees and has money go to corporate profits > they purchase goods and services they want > those stores make money > those employees get paid > etc.
And all of that money is taxable.
Compare to
Me > drug dealer who sells marijuana > (some money) drug dealer and his associates use in our economy > (most of the money) goes to finance illegal activities across the border.
A much smaller percentage of that 1) goes to our economy and 2) much less of it is taxable.
Furthermore, give me ONE other example of ANY product where more than 10% of the people who use that product manufacture their own version of the product at home? Marijuana is a product like anything else. If it is available in 1) mass quantities 2) for reasonable prices, people will rely on private manufacturers to make that product for them. You are underestimating how cheaply and effectively private manufacturers can make marijuana to the point that even the most advanced marijuana smokers would buy it from the store.
You will always have small percentages of the population who makes their own version of the product (people with vegetable gardens at home), but that is irrelevant as there will always be people like that in ANY market. That is simply unavoidable and why should it be punished? It only matters what the vast majority of consumers do.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
