Taxes

The United States stands to make a great deal of money from legalizing drugs. Estimates show that the taxation of marijuana alone in the state of California would exceed $1.4 billion. These tax paying citizens would have jobs supporting these habits just as alcoholics and tobacco users do, because they could not subsist on black market earnings. The drugs would no longer have to be imported, creating jobs and taxable income locally. Sin taxes could be appropriated on a local level so a community could decide how readily drugs could be consumed. The United States has already shown it is very willing to tax sins like cigarette smoking and gambling, why not capitalize on other addicts? Adam Smith could get behind that.