A couple weeks ago, the Legislative Research Council issued a prison/jail fiscal impact statement for New Approach South Dakota’s recreational marijuana initiative. Using the surprising interpretation that the initiative only legalizes marijuana paraphernalia and not marijuana itself, LRC estimates the initiative would save $207,000 a year in prison and jail costs.
New Approach had been expecting LRC to report much greater savings, based on previous information provided informally by LRC staff. A legislator asked LRC to recalculate savings for an amended version of the initiative that would clearly legalize marijuana statewide, and LRC obliged with the following table:
| 1 Year Jail | 10 Year Jail | 1 Year Prison | 10 Year Prison | |
| New Class 1 Misdemeanor, Marijuana DUI | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| New Class 6 felony, certain solvent extractions | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| SDCL 22-42-6, marijuana possession, partial repeal | ($1,878,702) | ($18,787,023) | $0 | $0 |
| SDCL 22-42A-3, drug paraphenalia, partial repeal | ($206,953) | ($2,069,529) | $0 | $0 |
| SDCL 22-42-15, marijuana injestion, repeal | ($1,281,717) | ($12,817,167) | $0 | $0 |
| SDCL 22-42-7, marijuana distribution, partial repeal | ($237,877) | ($2,378,773) | ($134,298) | ($1,342,976) |
| SDCL 22-42-10, drug facility, partial repeal | ($4,806) | ($48,062) | ($108,928) | ($1,089,276) |
| Total Cost Change: | ($3,610,055) | ($36,100,554) | ($243,226) | ($2,432,252) |
That’s $3.85 million saved each year, $38.5 million over ten years. That’s lower than the $42.5 million New Approach claimed was promised in the original analysis, but still 18.6 times the savings found under LRC’s narrow interpretation of the initiative.
Also take into account tax from legal, regulated sale of marijuana and you have money for law enforcement and programs to counter other drugs in the state, jails, schools, roads, basic infrastructure, etc. Even without additional hires, current law enforcement manpower would be able to shift to other issues (meth, opioids) that have been increasing.
Citing these statistics is in no way and endorsement of marijuana use by me …
“By no longer arresting and prosecuting possession and other low-level marijuana offenses, states are saving hundreds of millions of dollars,” the Drug Policy Alliance writes, citing the $200 million spent on marijuana enforcement in Washington state between 2000 and 2010. Here’s what the DPA report found:
1. Teen marijuana use is unchanged.
2. Marijuana arrests are way down — but racial disparities remain.
3. Marijuana legalization appears to have had little impact on traffic fatalities.
4. Tax revenues have gone up, but make up a small slice of state budgets overall.
5. Rates of marijuana poisonings among small children in Colorado increased post-legalization, although the overall numbers remain negligible: There were 47 marijuana-related poison control center calls in Colorado in 2015, up from 25 in 2013.
6. The rate of adult emergency department visits for marijuana use also increased following legalization. This was mostly attributable to more emergency department visits from tourists who had come to the state and had a negative experience with marijuana.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/13/heres-how-legal-pot-changed-colorado-and-washington/?utm_term=.f84a55c6efed
A study quoted in The Economist magazine indicated that White automobile drivers were more likely than Black drivers to possess drugs when pulled over. Yet officers and the general public were more suspicious of Blacks and more Black folk were being stopped.
Seriously, Blacks have a realistic chance of being shot for being black. Who needs drugs to complicate their lives?
So then, how would lawyers make up for the losses? How about the cops and those who prosecute these cases? There is already an overburden of lawyers for what little case loads are out there, take a look at states attorney jobs in rural areas, no one wants them. What about those who run the 24/7 programs? How about the money the federal government lavishes the states with to jail dope smokers? What about the armored vehicles and cool heavy weaponry? What about the pharmacy’s where you can get the heroin over their counter?
And all that money that could be spent on education, scholarships, infrastructure and maybe even expanding Medicaid and mental health and addiction treatment for many more people! Then if we taxed regulated recreational marijuana like we do alcohol and cigarettes, we’d even have more money to improve quality of life in our state!!