On Tuesday, April 7, Wisconsinites will get to vote in the primary election to determine the presidential candidates for November’s election. Despite being the state housing the Democratic National Convention, in an election where most Democratic candidates promised legal marijuana for all, Wisconsin is one of a small minority of states with no legal marijuana program, not even for medical purposes.
Ahead of the election, voters should keep in mind a few key points in favor of legalization. Marijuana legalization would:
Bring in tax revenue
This is the first and most commonly heard point in favor of legalization. With the money obtained from taxing cannabis products, states can fund public services and improve the quality of life of numerous citizens. In Washington, in 2017 alone, the state reaped more than $314 million through the excise tax on marijuana products. Colorado’s state government earned $302 million in 2019 from taxes, licenses and fees on the legal cannabis market; the state boasts a combined $1.2 billion in revenue since the substance was legalized in 2014.
Colorado gives a detailed account of the way marijuana dollars are spent: In 2018-2019, nearly $70 million were invested in social services such as abuse prevention and public health programs; $20 million went to local affairs like construction of affordable housing; another $20 million, plus 90% of the excise tax income, were spent to support education, in particular public K-12 schools; and numerous other programs including public safety, agriculture and the justice system benefitted from millions in additional funding through the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund.
If Wisconsin were to legalize marijuana, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue estimated that the state could expect at least $138 million annually in additional tax revenue. Our local programs, agriculture and education could greatly benefit from this new source of funding.
Save taxpayer money
In California, after marijuana was legalized, arrests plummeted. The total number of arrests was reduced from 1.2 million in 2013 to 1.09 million in 2018, while felony arrests on drug charges went from 137,000 to 28,000, from 31% of all felony arrests to 9.4%.
By avoiding much of the 17,392 arrests for marijuana possession that took place in Wisconsin in 2018, each costing taxpayers around $439, the state could have saved up to $7.6 million on arrests alone. Beyond arrests, people entering the justice system are extremely expensive for taxpayers, who have to pay for courts, judges, prosecutors and prison sentences—this is especially true as Wisconsin still considers marijuana possession to be a felony after the first offense and people can be incarcerated for simple possession.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) says that there were 24,000 inmates in state prisons at the end of 2018, of which 12% were incarcerated on drug offenses. DOC statistics list more than 11,000 admissions in Wisconsin prisons with a marijuana offense between 2000 and 2016, an average of 650 people a year. The cost of keeping an adult in prison for one year, in Wisconsin, is between $32,000 and $40,000, according to the DOC. Thus, each person incarcerated for possessing marijuana costs the taxpayers up to $19,000 (six months) for a first offense and up to $133,000 (3.5 years) for subsequent offenses. This is money that could be put to better use elsewhere.
Restore justice
Talking about legalization in monetary terms makes for a compelling argument, but the main consequence of the War on Drugs is the human cost. When people are arrested and incarcerated for drug offenses that are legal across state lines, they become much less likely to find a job, rent a home, access government services and participate in society. This is particularly true in Milwaukee, one of the country’s most segregated cities, as black citizens are far more likely to be negatively affected by cannabis prohibition.
Regardless of race, every demographic group consumes marijuana at roughly the same rate. Despite that, communities of color are disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition all over the nation. In Milwaukee, according to the Police Department’s data, 72% of people arrested for small-scale marijuana possession between 2012 and 2015 were black, and only 12% were white. Less than 28% of Milwaukee County’s population identifies as black, according to the census.
Following the examples of states like Illinois or California, which focus on expunging the records of people with past marijuana-related offenses, scrubbing records clean would free countless Americans of the burden of a past arrest. In Wisconsin alone, nearly 500,000 people were arrested on marijuana charges in the past four decades, the overwhelming majority of whom were arrested for simple possession. These are half-a-million Wisconsinites who could regain the ability to fully contribute to society if marijuana were made legal.
