Drugs: Legalize and Regulate (7)
And here is some beautiful information from, well, Information Is Beautiful. A help to visualize the cost/benefit of legalization according to data estimated for England.
Potential tax revenue from legalizing drugs in the UK
The trouble with the projection models about potential tax revenue is that they often over-estimate the tax revenue that could be collected. This appears to be the result of these models being based on what illegal drugs cost now on the street. They do not take into account that once legalized, drug prices would come down, likely by huge amounts. With a lower price tag, actual tax revenues to be collected would also be substantially lower.
And if it is the large corporations who get involved in the legal drugs trade another chunk of the tax revenue will be lost through creative accounting and offshore status, no doubt. (:
Fair point. I haven’t studied the economic analysis behind this chart. Of course any projection is wildly uncertain, as no-one can really predict what would happen, given the major social and legal changes that drug legalization would entail. The point of the chart is get an idea of the scale of things.
Hi Bhante, while filling in time in Bangkok airport, I just read an interesting article in the International Heralld Tribune about what the wikileaks have revealed about US narcotics surveillance and how intertwined with politics it is, and also how the agency responsible, the DEA is becoming increasingly independent of the CIA. A post on drugs and politics could be good…
Bhutan monk faces jail for anti-smoking law violation:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12329957