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　　The pros and cons of drug legalization in the U.S.

　　Drug legalization

　　In a study for the Cato Institute, Jeffrey A. Miron, senior lecturer on economics at Harvard University and a senior fellow at Cato, and Katherine Waldock, professor of economics at New York University, estimate that legalizing drugs would save the government approximately $41.3 billion annually on expenditures related to the enforcement of prohibition.

　　Just as important, drug legalization would translate into higher tax revenues generated by the sale of these newly-legalized products in the open commercial marketplace.

　　Marijuana is already believed to be the nation's number one cash crop, exceeding the combined value of wheat and corn. Pot is also the leading cash crop in at least a dozen states, including California and North Carolina.

　　Indeed, the potential financial gains to be realized through the legalization of drugs would be of particular interest to the state of California, which not only teems with thousands of (illegal) marijuana growers, but whose state government also faces a budget shortfall of nearly $20-billion for fiscal 2011.

　　In fact, this November, California voters will consider a ballot initiative - Proposition 19 - to legalize marijuana in the state.

　　According to press reports, supporters of the California initiative estimate that about $15-billion worth of marijuana is sold every year in the state - thus, an excise tax on the retail sales of marijuana would likely raise at least $1.3 billion a year in revenue.

　　First, legalization eliminates arrests for drug trafficking in addition to arrests for simple possession, Second, legalization saves prosecutorial, judicial, and incarceration expenses -- these savings are minimal in the case of decriminalization. Third, legalization allows taxation of drug production and sale.

　　For state and local governments, savings would result from: the reduction of expenditures of police resources by eliminating drug arrests; the reduction in prosecutorial and judicial resources by eliminating drug-related prosecutions; and the reduction in correctional resources by eliminating drug-related incarcerations, Miron added.

　　Growers in this area worry that legalized pot will reduce the value of their cash crop - placing the region's economy at some risk.

　　In addition, they fear that legalization might result in large corporations - perhaps big tobacco or large agribusinesses -- taking over the market, driving out the small-scale growers.

　　Ironically, the legalization of marijuana might actually hurt most those who depend on it for their current livelihood and espouse its consumption.