Pot -for-Profit

President Obama dismissed the question of marijuana legalization with a chuckle at his "open for questions" town hall last week, but really, this is no laughing matter (well, maybe, if you're already stoned...)

The question, which collected an impressive 3 million votes, was phrased, "With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?"

Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network, makes the case that it is our job as voters to make this an issue that legislators can't (or don't have to) laugh at anymore. The issue has often been aptly compared to the prohibition of alcohol in the early 20th century, and in a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Nadelman stresses how similar the prohibition of marijuana is to that of alcohol - and the implications of the repeal of the latter, upon the realization that, "the evils of failed suppression far outweighed the evils of alcohol consumption."

While Nadelman covered the issue of how much money is needlessly spent on prosecuting marijuana offenses, the point made at Obama's town hall goes beyond Nadelman's argument to press the issue of how much money could be gained by taxing marijuana as a cash crop.

Stephen Easton, conducted research for The Fraser Institute about the implications for legalization in Canada, and approximated that taxing marijuana "could translate into potential revenues for the government of over $2 billion."

Meanwhile, other initiatives in criminal justice, such as the proposal in Maryland to abolish the death penalty due to its high cost, suggest a willingness among lawmakers to compromise their tough-on-crime if the savings are high enough. If bills like this (and similar ones in Montana and New Mexico) pass, they will set a precedent that may be hard to ignore when it comes to marijuana legalization.

The heavily moral rhetoric used by politicians and special interest groups to villanize drug use and would seem to predict an insurmountable cultural resistance to legalization. However, as history has proven the people's voice to not exactly dictate policy, we can assume that this is more lip service than the genuine reason for strict anti-drug laws.

No, the major obstacles to legalization at this point are most likely not the anxieties of concerned voters; instead, they are those massively powerful but eerily quiet political players in the game of Capitalism. Big pharmaceutical companies make a huge amount of money not only on medications that marijuana might replace (more of a theoretical position), but also on urine analysis tests. Alcohol manufacturers might also suffer from the existence of another legal and popular recreational drug. Finally, private prisons, which are filled with low-level drug offenders every day and are one of the most profitable industries out there, would suffer. And these prisons have significant lobbying power, thanks to large and regular campaign donations paid to the candidate who will keep them in business.