To say that legalizing weed would have a significant impact on the economy is like saying that stopping producing any other one product would. So give me some references on whether or not government-run marijuana would impact it at all.

Uh, it's a multi-billion dollar industry being funneled to an entirely different country and spent on violence and hatred, and it's illegal. If it became easy to access, and cheaper, as it would, how much would that industry grow? Do you know how much the world economy would suffer if alcohol suddenly became illegal? This is just common sense.
I doubt it would like, kick-start the ♥♥♥♥ out of it, but it wouldn't exactly hurt.

Alright, now can you give me some evidence of that claim, please?

Here let me give you documented examples of the future. What are you asking for proof of? It can't be proven, it's logical conjecture, but that doesn't make it invalid as a point. Are you incapable of seeing the logic behind the statement? Does it seem disbelievable to you? If so, why. If not, why are you asking me to cite?

All that swearing sounds a bit too aggressive, smoke some weed and chillax brotha. - Seraph

Ophanim, I've remained calm and not predatory at all throughout this discussion; why have you decided all of a sudden to start personally attacking people? I can clearly make a conjecture and see what you're saying. You are saying that marijuana makes lots of money, and if the government ran and taxed it, they would make lots of money, impacting the economy. Now, I agree with the fact that they would make money, but I don't see it as having any real effect. All I'm asking for is anything that supports your statement; no, I'm not asking for documentation of the future. I'm asking for, say, a documentation of the estimation of revenue made from underground selling of marijuana, perhaps. THAT would support your claim if, say, the figure was really high, and it WOULDN'T support your claim if it were, say, relatively low (in the millions, low billions, etcetera). So could you give me some figures on the estimation of yearly revenue made from the selling of marijuana in the U.S.? I don't know if they exist, and if they don't, then my bad.

Link's already been posted in this topic.

I don't know how legalisation, and thus taxation/regulation would affect that. It would probably go down a bit, judging by the effects of legalisation in Holland and Portugal.
More education about drugs tends to lead to less users, and makes it unavailable for under-age users, hence, less income.

Ah, must've missed it. Well in that case, I don't see it really affecting our income; even if that figure doubled for government distribution, I doubt that $17 billion extra annual income would help. According to US Government Revenue, last year we made around $4.6 trillion, so I don't see $17 billion doing much. Based on 2009's revenue, that'd be a mere .36% increase, and THAT is assuming that the cartel's revenue would be half of what the government would be making.

EDIT: Federal income, according to the same site, was around $2.1 trillion in 2009, so going with federal distribution, that'd be around a .8% increase in FEDERAL revenue, still pretty insignificant, and again, considering they'd receive double what cartels were receiving, which is probably a pretty inflated estimate.

But it would reduce spending on catching said cartels, and enforcing laws about it.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/07/news/ec ... 2009050710

Obviously $17 is still a bit optimistic, but I think you underestimate how far even a billion dollars can go.
It isn't something you should just write off.

That's the issue, here. There are too many variables to take into the equation. But you have to remember, cartels don't sell JUST marijuana, so they'd still be out there, albeit with significantly less money. Still some serious money to be made by them (I think it was around $6 billion). I still stand by my statement that it wouldn't even moderately affect our economy.

And Goat, you're right, but it wouldn't have any significant impact on the state of the economy, as Ophanim suggested when he said "I doubt it would like, kick-start the ♥♥♥♥ out of it, but it wouldn't exactly hurt."

This makes me laugh for some reason.

847,863 arrests for marijuana related offences in 2008.

"The average annual operating cost per state inmate in 2001 was $22,650, or $62.05 per day; among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it was $22,632 per inmate, or $62.01 per day."

Obviously not all of them will go to jail, but it is likely to be a significant percentage of them.

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/53 (on 7.)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=16

If you're saying first "You can't tell because there are too many variables", then second "It will do [] and [] but not []", you're contradicting yourself. You can't use both arguments at once.

I am sorry for my self-contradicting; with Goat's figure, that helps, though. It covers about half of what you said about money being SAVED elsewhere. Hell, it may change my opinion. just gotta get out the Calculator quick.

Say 90% of them go to jail (don't know how reasonable this is, but I'm sure it's pretty close). That means about 763,000 inmates are created. Multiply that by your figure of $22,650 a year, and you get the following number for that cost: $17,281,950,000. Errr...let's just say about $17 billion. That, totaled with the approximately $19 billion-dollar overestimate of how much the government would make, makes for $36 billion for the government.

But those arrests aren't just costs to the federal government, so I'm factoring state and local along with federal revenue last year. The arrests themselves save the U.S. government, including federal, state and local, according to the 2008 Government Income, around .38% of total revenue. And I used the 2008 figures because that's what you gave me for the number of arrests. Then, we have the .8% increase made by the Federal government via distribution of marijuana legally.

So there your two figures are (that I've found, anyway). From the arrests not happening and inmates not being held, the ENTIRE U.S. government saves .38% of the total budget, while the Federal government makes .8% of its revenue back from distributing marijuana (using my very inflated figure), which, while nothing to shake your finger at, still probably wouldn't affect the general healthiness of the economy.

Hey, so I don't have to use my doubled figure that's incredibly inflated and I can get more accurate numbers for how much the federal government makes, could someone find me figures for how much more or less the government of, say, the Netherlands made after legalization versus how much the cartels made BEFORE legalization? Even something general, like 'It got smaller', or 'It got bigger' would be helpful.

EDIT: Nevermind, forgot that in the Netherlands the government doesn't distribute marijuana, it's just they don't enforce the laws in coffee shops and such. But...how about Portugal? Can you get those figures for there?

Every little bit of saved budget helps. Say even 5% of that is then funneled into assistance for the homeless, that's $850,000,000.