Blocking Marijuana Legislation

While the American Tax code is an antiquated one in desperate need of rectification and newfound taxable revenue in need of taxation, these arguments fall short of justifying the wholesale legalization of marijuana. Some estimates place the value of tax revenue through marijuana legalization at $110 Billion and with the national deficit continuing its rapid growth, while the dollar is at risk of being demoted from the world reserve currency, the revenue derived from marijuana legalization and taxation would do little to ensure the overall long-term stability of the U.S. economy.

While economists and political strategists have correctly identified the “war on drugs” as a lost cause of the highest order, this does not lead to the conclusion that all drugs against which this war operates should be legalized. Tony Nitti points to a relatively obscure inevitability that would eventually obviate the benefits, if any, of taxing marijuana use and consumption, arguing that effective regulation, distribution, and taxation of marijuana would amount to less revenue than presently anticipated. This is true primarily because federal legalization would provoke a black-market that would be just as active as it was prior to regulation, if not more so, in continuing the preclude legitimate sellers from making good on their investment (Nitti. 2013). As per Nitt, “In order to generate the $40 million necessary to fund school construction [in Colorado, for example], the [marijuana] production price-per-pound would have to increase to $1,100.” Given such exorbitant prices, consistent marijuana consumers would refuse to do business with a regulated marijuana market, instead preferring to purchase at far lower prices from black-market operators.

Accordingly, the fiscal benefits of marijuana legalization are all but eradicated on account of the inevitability of regulated marijuana being priced much higher than the marijuana of the unregulated variety. Given the illusory nature of these financial benefits, the social costs of marijuana legalization are far too high to justify legalization as the potential impact of long-term marijuana legalization on our social fabric’s integrity is too great. David Frum, for example, argues that the majority of marijuana users tend to be those among us most prone to the unhealthiest of choices, most of them children. Given that their brains have yet to fully develop, to increase the extent to which children might engage in marijuana use by legalizing it would be to further expose children to the same potential for bad choice-making that they have already demonstrated (Frum, 2013). For Frum, this kind of marijuana access runs the risk of entirely eradicating the value of our nation’s youngest generation, which would reap long-term results at odds with the desires supposedly founding marijuana legalization.

While Frum’s position on this matter has been questioned by medical professionals doubting that children with a readily available black-market would engage in marijuana use any more than they already do if marijuana were to be legalized, it is difficult to imagine that marijuana legalization is anything other than an unnecessary evil in light of the fact that its fiscal advantages are not adequately realizable. Moreover, as Frum suggests, it would be nearly impossible to cultivate some uniform set of legitimate rules that would amount to a statutory regulation of marijuana distribution and use, if only because marijuana potency varies drastically across various strains and growth methods. Given this lack of financial benefit from marijuana legalization, in addition to the virtual impossibility of instituting a practical set of laws set to govern marijuana’s distribution and use, several pressures can be brought to bear on the members of Congress in order to block the legalization of marijuana.

Through engaging the “Religious Right,” a clarion call for good morals and proper upbringing is made. These groups have a vested interest in precluding the kind of culture ripe for bad decision-making discussed by Frum. In lieu of these bad decisions, churches and other religious institutions hope that young people choose them as places in which safety and security can be achieved, for both body and mind and long-term and short. Moreover, the Federal Drug Administration would have no interest in the headaches that would ensure from being charged with regulating the use of marijuana.

Ultimately, the difficulties in warning users of drugs have emerged as a primary source of litigation and costs in recent years. Though the FDA may approve a given drug’s warning label, the user of the drug may nevertheless sue his/her doctor for failing to adequately warn him/her of the risks entailed in using it if he/she suffers on account of having taken the medication. Much of the discussion in these cases centers around the FDA’s approval of the warning label and the ability of the drug manufacturer to rely on the warning label as a shield to legal liability. If manufacturers cannot so rely on the FDA as a source of substantiation when users of their drugs claim not to have been adequately warned against their dangers, then there is nothing to shield a manufacturer or distributor from legal liability when a user or his/her doctor fails to properly make use of a given drug. These same concerns attending to the pharmaceutical manufacturers will accrue for those charged with medical marijuana regulation, many of whom would likely be members of the pharmaceutical industry.

Through engaging the pharmaceutical industry and explaining the added costs that would be entailed in accounting for the news concerns that would be raised by charging them with the distribution of marijuana and warning users against the various forms of use, it is likely that the pharmaceutical lobby would act against any effort to legalize marijuana. Moreover, the legalization of marijuana would cut directly into pharmaceutical companies’ profits by offering an herbal alternative to many of the anxiety, stress and anger disorders that are presently being treated by prescription medications.

Given these serious concerns relating to the long-term financial viability of one of the nation’s biggest industries, insurance entities will be even less likely to offer coverage for any marijuana-related injury. With a lack of willing marketplace participants with which the FDA could cooperate in regulating and distributing marijuana, its legalization will be difficult for any Congress to achieve, providing that these relevant pressures are brought to bear. Ultimately, there is little to be gained and much to lose for those who would be relied upon to most actively administer any newly regulated marijuana market. Because of this, enlisting the pharmaceutical, religious and insurance lobbies in an effort to block wholesale legalization of marijuana would likely be successful.

The means by which formal legislation regarding marijuana use might be effectuated are the same as those by which this legislation might be blocked: lobbying. Ultimately, the lobbyists operating on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance marketplace and the “Religious Right” are far more active and better connected than those associated with the effort to legalize marijuana across the board. Given this, through the careful engagement of these lobbyists, it will be nearly impossible to create legislation that would serve to functionally legalize marijuana in the United States. This is all the more true because the imagine financial benefits from such legalization are revealed relatively easily in that no rational human would pay quadruple the cost for a product that can be safely purchased in an unregulated marketplace for a fraction of that cost. With few fiscal benefits to be gained from marijuana legalization, and moral and industrial losses set to accrue if this were to occur, the process of blocking any legislation to this effect would be relatively straightforward.

References

Frum, D. (2013). Marijuana use is too risky a choice. CNN.com. CNN, 7 Jan. 2013. Web. 7 Jan. 2013.

Nitti, T. (2013). Understanding the impact of legalized recreational marijuana on state tax revenue. Forbes.com. Forbes. 24 Sep. 2013. Web. 24 Sep. 2013.