Having operated both on the legal (coffeeshop) and illegal (weed dealer) side of the pot trade, I can tell you that governments worldwide are missing out on a LOT of taxable income. Weed is an immensely popular substance, and the amount of money that is being spent on it is mind-boggling. At peak moments, we served 100-150 customers an hour in the shop, sometimes going up to 200. On average they spend about 25-30 euros a head. On quieter days, we still averaged about 50-60 people an hour. Producing one pound of weed costs about 250 dollars... just over 50 cents a gram, no matter its quality. In Dutch shops, a gram of weed will cost you anywhere between 8 and 20 dollars, depending on quality. The shop I worked at was open 12-14 hours a day, every day. You do the math. Some shops attract even more customers. The legendary (and now closed) Coffeeshop Checkpoint served 3,000 customers a day, with regular peaks of up to 5,000. It turned a yearly revenue of 26 million euros, close to 40 million dollars.
The War on Drugs is a lost cause, especially the one on weed. No matter how many manufacturers, dealers and users you put behind bars, people are going to keep manufacturing, dealing and using weed. It's too easy. Not everyone has the resources and the know-how to set up a meth lab, but all it takes to grow a weed plant is a container, some dirt, water and some seeds. Add some nutrients and lighting, and you have a semi-professional set-up. You can intercept a ton of weed at the border, and it'll barely make a dent in the owner's operation. It's a complete waste of tax payers' money and government resources. Instead of hemorrhaging money on fighting a ghost, governments should just accept the fact that people will use cannabis no matter how much you try to prevent them from doing so. It's a widely accepted fact that marijuana is less harmful and addictive than legal narcotics like tobacco, over-the-counter drugs and alcohol. It's no more a gateway drug than the aforementioned three, which you can buy in unlimited amounts if you wanted to. As Katt Williams says, "It only has three side effects: hungry, happy, sleepy. You can't even overdose on it. You might think your buddy's dead, but he ain't dead! He's gonna wake up in 30 minutes, hungry enough to eat everything in your house. Aspirin is perfectly legal but if you take thirteen of them mother!@#$ers it'll be your last headache." In controlled doses, marijuana is a medicine and a natural pain killer. It improves the quality of life of people with chronic, often fatal diseases like multiple sclerosis and cancer. You can even eliminate most of the health risks by not smoking it, and instead using a vaporizer, or extracting the THC and using it as a cooking product.
Hell, it should be a crime /not/ to allow people to use it.
The problems are that once you legalize it, price will drop dramatically as there will be allot more supply(it's easier cheaper and safer to grow) for the demands. (and possibly also lower demands in most countries due to the fact the drug isn't illegal anymore and thus not as cool as meth or cocaine or what ever)
The whole blackmarket willl collapse and the legal market won't even come near to circulate as much money as the illegal one, for weed in Netherlands alone we are talking about billions of euros going to mostly people who really like spending money
Thus legalization will defiantly hurt the entire consumers economy(houses, cars, boats, services, and in many cases the other illegal markets) on a scale hardly imaginable.
Many companies in these markets are quite influential and i am sure they understand that legalization (especially of weed and even more cocaine) should never happen for them and that they also actively use there influence to keep the ban in place.
For the politicians (in europe) that do want to change all this, its very hard, cooperation in Europe is almost impossible, we just bicker and bicker until we grow old die and get run over by china and Russia.
Legalization could come from European commissions, if they can beat the big lobbyists in trying to convince the leaders of our nations to legalize drugs.
Atleast i hope so.
Still, just legalizaing, is dangerous.
Its not easy, look what happens with alcohol, it's part of our cultures and society and people do not take it's fatal dangers serious.
Alcohol is extremely dangerous yet normal.
Thorough Education on all these substances is there for essential so people do not use it with the thought of it being harmless.
But then again, making people able to think for them selves is not on the modern political agenda for education(except perhaps Finland).
They prefer the danger signs that just say: "Danger! do not enter!" instead of telling us what the actual danger is so we can judge our course of actions ourselves.
Legalization thus can be dangerous, however leaving the production, transportation, trade and distribution in the hands of crazy criminals is much much more dangerous.
And we all know, a danger sign that says Danger do not enter, is very very interesting, especially on a certain age, at which it is most damaging to do these drugs.(especially for the brain).
The question is, do the people who can make the decision find it worth to sacrifices there economy and do they have the right reports on there desks, who are not signed by some private research company, payed or even founded by those major companies who definitively don't want to sacrifice there business for a better, healthier society. Thats simple not on there stressed out, greedy minds.
