Last week, I argued that Australia should emulate the state of Colorado in the US and legalise the sale of marijuana:
…legalising marajuana makes a lot of sense. Sure, while it isn’t exactly be healthy, it has less harmful effects than alcohol. On any given Friday or Saturday night, the nation’s emergency wards are loaded full of people with alcohol related injuries, often through alcohol-related violence. By contrast, how often do you see or hear of stoners getting into fights or acting like louts? And yet alcohol is legal and pot isn’t. Inconsistent much?
Moreover, legalising and regulating marajuana sales could provide a nice new revenue source for the government, whilst ensuring purity of supply. It would also reduce profits to organised crime, which currently supplies a lot of the illegal drugs.
Today, The AFR’s David Leyonhjelm has produced a well reasoned article also arguing for the legalisation of marijuana:
…it is difficult to understand why marijuana remains prohibited.
…studies have confirmed the effectiveness of the active ingredients for treating conditions such as glaucoma, migraine and arthritis, providing relief from chronic pain associated with degenerative diseases and spinal injuries, and alleviating the side effects of common treatments for cancer and HIV/AIDS.
Its relative safety, long recognised in folk wisdom, has also been borne out by research…
The rest of the world is changing… The quest for additional taxation revenue is one of the reasons for this. Colorado expects to generate $US133 million ($144 million) in taxes annually…
Legal availability would deprive organised crime, including some bikie gangs, of a major source of income and relieve police of the cost of finding and destroying illicit crops. Of the $1.5 billion spent annually on drug law enforcement, 70 per cent is attributable to marijuana.
Spot on. So what is Australia waiting for?
