Colorado Made How Much Now?

Colorado received 2 million in tax revenue for recreational marijuana sales in the first month of legalized pot sales.  Huzzah! Great news right? For those who have long advocated ending the war on drugs (or at least marijuana) it is a well earned chance to say "I told you so!" but this argument can only take you so far.  Here are two reasons why the 2 million won't significantly change the course of the marijuana legalization movement.

For starters, money is all relative.  Two million sounds like a lot, and indeed it is, but relative to the size of the Colorado state budget it's likely puny.  Here's how this story is expected to play out: First, advocates for legalization point to the large amount of money raised. Next, opponents say it will never cover the costs of the consequences on society and point to the fact that alcohol tax revenue doesn't even come close to paying for the cost in alcohol related traffic accidents alone.  Then advocates will say that marijuana is way different from alcohol, and that even if the analogy held true, much of the cost of alcohol related social problems would still be bore even if we tried to instill prohibition again.  Then the opponents say that it was never about money anyway and that we should think about the message were sending our kids.  Blah Blah Blah, I've heard it all before.  After a day or two, this story will drop out of the news and we won't really even remember it until November when several more states go to the ballot box for some type of policy reform.

Wait, did you catch what happened there.  That sounded kind of funny... what was that last part again? "It was never about the money anyway... think about the message were sending our kids."  This is really the heart of the second and major reason why Colorado's tax revenue won't be changing anybody's mind.  Advocates for reform have long touted the economic benefits of legalization and argue that enforcement is a failed policy from the beginning.  But opponents never took this instrumentally rational argument and instead framed legalization as a morality concern.  Until legalizers respond to this specific argument, they will continue to have a hard time convincing legislators who have to be concerned with re-elections.  The sad irony here is that they could take on this argument and win.

Drug crime punishment is so radically draconian it defies logic.  We're locking non-violent offenders up for decades, confiscating their assets, disqualifying them from government programs and educational loans, labeling them as felons and dramatically impeding their future prospects.  Beyond that, these punishments are being applied with an overt racial/ethnic bias.  Families are being torn apart, and frequently these families are clustered in the same neighborhoods.  But what I think is most important, is that we are lying to our kids and they know it.  We use hyperbole when we tell them about the dangers of drug use, and then they go on the internet and find out the "truth" (scary to think that the internet is better trusted than parental authorities).  When we tell obvious lies we break the bonds of trust that keep them from hearing about the very real dangers of drug use.  Recreational marijuana should be legal, but until we show that morality is on our side the journey is likely to be slow and bumpy.