You’d think that these days the Feds would be thinking about the lost revenue stream. I have no idea how much is paid in alcohol taxes to the US Treasury, but I bet it’s a crapton. Marijuana would be just as productive a tax base.
This is the crux of it. As far as the State is concerned, it’s legal and they won’t use law enforcement resources to go after it.
In theory, even revenue from illegal activity should be reported for income tax purposes. In theory. Would be interesting to know what percentage of marijuana sellers actually do pay federal income tax on it.
Just a bit of follow-up… basically what the states are saying is “Hey Federal government- weed’s legal as far as OUR legal systems are concerned. If you want to go prosecute people for it, be our guest, but we’re not going to help you do it”
The gotcha is that most Federal crimes have a corresponding state crime associated with it- you murder someone in a Post Office, and you’ve run afoul of both the Federal laws and the state laws prohibiting murder. But the cops are coming to arrest you for the state law murdering, and if you’re tried in Federal court, it’s because of how the jurisdiction works.
But when there’s no state or local law being broken, it’s likely that the local/state cops aren’t even going to bother to come out for a strictly Federal crime like weed possession or use. Federal law enforcement can certainly do so, but like @Falchion points out, they’re not going to be coming into contact with low level consumers or dealers.
So it’s still illegal in Federal law, but basically you have to get caught, which is extremely unlikely. And apparently it hasn’t been much of an issue; the Feds could have easily gone after commercial weed outfits like dispensaries, etc… but have chosen not to.
I think it’s one of those things where the Federal government and the states all realize that it’s not a big deal, but that there are also enough states who are against it that they can’t repeal the Federal laws, but they can let states go their own way by just not enforcing it.
[edit] - What @SmartAleq and @hajario said.
And it’s not as though there’s no precedent, Prohibition was enacted by a constitutional amendment and at the time that amendment was repealed something like 37 states (huh, about the same as have enacted various levels of cannabis legalization) had made their own laws legalizing alcohol to whatever degree they preferred. And even after Prohibition was repealed federally, you still had “dry counties” peppered here and there across the states, where you could get locally arrested even though technically you were still golden under the federal laws. America is such a weird place, maybe we ought to just acknowledge the states are de facto sovereign countries and the whole place is more like the EU than it is a more unified country.
Another interesting layer. Joe Stoner smells like weed. He’s in a car that smells like weed. A few recent cases in Pennsylvania courts say that odor is not probable cause to search the vehicle.
For all the cops know, they may be smelling legal weed purchased at a dispensary. The driver and passengers may hold Medical Marijuana Program cards.
Not to mention the manpower and cost of enforcing laws against a relatively harmless drug, and the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating anyone charged and/or convicted. Maybe the government should just let them all go… Oh, wait…
407 million in 2020, according to this link.
Isn’t that link just California? In which case I’d like to raise my estimate to a metric crapton at the Federal level.
$7.7B in 2019 (state and federal) according to the cite below
Thank you! That more than proves my point. Not legalizing (and taxing) weed at the Federal level is costing the Treasury and the various non-legalizing states +/- $8B in lost revenues per annum. Even with the size of the Federal Budget that’s a healthy bit of change being left on the table.
Whoops, you are correct. My bad.
This link says 10 billion bucks in 2019 in federal excise tax.
View from the North:
my rule of thumb to compare Canadian numbers to US is multiply by 10 to get a rough equivalent in the US.
I am in Oregon. The local sheriff deputies live in the local communities and I personally know several. They seem very relieved to no longer have to deal with people that have small amounts of pot.
This summer I was sitting in the gazebo in my garden when a sheriff deputy drove up looking for a nieghbor who had moved away a year or so before. I am sitting there among my various berries and tomato plants, and my allowed, 4 huge marijuana plants.
All he said was nice plants! That was his entire interest in my criminal activity.
What’s even more interesting about this is that there’s a federal law that prohibits any business deductions when conducting trafficking of illegal drugs. Cost of Goods Sold is the only way to reduce your taxable income legally if you’re actually paying tax, which introduces some rather strange incentives in the structure of operations. Essentially, it’s most tax efficient for every grower, transporter, and retail outlet to be separate entities, so that the farmers can deduct the costs allocable to growing, which are their costs of goods sold, then the transporter buys the stuff from the farmer and sells it to the retailer. If each person doing these things has their own business, most of their expenses will be cost of goods sold. If it’s all one integrated business and you’re paying different people wages, those costs would not be deductible.
I suspect that for the most part, that’s probably how it would get set up to begin with, but federal tax law has essentially prevented large-scale integrated operations from forming for reasons other than banking laws.
I live in California, and work for a major defense contractor. I hold a DoD security clearance.
We’re frequently reminded at work that, whatever your state’s laws may be, marijuana use is still illegal at the federal level. More importantly, such use can adversely affect your security clearance. (I personally know someone who was denied a clearance because of marijuana use.) The message is clear: don’t touch the stuff if you value your clearance.
Losing my clearance would seriously jeopardize my job, so I don’t go near the stuff. (Not that I find this a major sacrifice, but still - I’m well aware of the situation.)
This is true of all Federal jobs and even some employees of companies who have Federal contracts aside from those with security clearances. I think also medical doctors who prescribe opiates since they need to be licensed by the DEA. Airline pilots are licensed by the FAA so same thing.
I hadn’t known that, but it doesn’t surprise me.
It’s also of no small concern to the military. Both for those serving and subject to random drug testing, and in recruiting. Harder to find qualified recruits who don’t need a waiver where MJ use is pervasive. And prior use beyond a certain level cannot be waived, IIRC.
When my brother was in the army, “random” drug testing was a thing. Periodically he would be told a random drug test would be required, along with the future date, always enough time to be certain of a clean pee.
The one time I was in a situation requiring random drug screening due to a government contract, I quit. I eventually returned to the job with the promise of one test, taken on the date of my choosing, then the promise I would not be randomly chosen for the remainder of my contract.
IME, random isn’t always done honestly.