Legalising cannabis in the UK 'would raise hundreds of millions in taxes'

[poledriver]

Legalising cannabis in the UK 'would raise hundreds of millions in taxes'

Exclusive: Private analysis for the Treasury concludes that regulation could also produce huge savings for the justice system

Legalising cannabis would raise taxes worth hundreds of millions of pounds and produce large savings for the criminal justice system, a private analysis for the Treasury has concluded.

It judged that regulating cannabis, which was used by more than two million people in the UK last year, could generate “notable tax revenue” and “lead to overall savings to public services”.

The Treasury study, seen by The Independent, was commissioned by the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg ahead of the general election to help formulate Liberal Democrat drugs policy if the party remained in office.

But his officials’ research underlined the appeal to the Treasury and the courts and prisons system of following the lead of several countries and US states and legalising and regulating the drug.

Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem health spokesman, said the study – believed to the first carried out by the government – added to growing evidence pointing to the need for a new approach to cannabis.

He said: “This is an important contribution to the wider debate on drugs reform and shows the UK could make savings in public spending and generate notable tax revenues from a regulated cannabis market, probably in the hundreds of millions of pounds, some of which could be spent on better education around the dangers of drugs use.

“There are successful cannabis markets emerging in different parts of the world and we should look to learn from these experiences. The burden is now with supporters of the status quo to explain why prohibition should continue in the face of the emerging evidence.”

George Osborne’s department agreed that regulating and taxing cannabis had the potential to “generate notable tax revenue, although we expect it to generate less than the c £0.5-0.8bn pa ISER assumes”.

It worked on the basis that the highly potent forms of cannabis, such as skunk, would remain illegal and under-18s would be barred from buying the drug as they are with cigarettes.

The Treasury said the rate of duty would depend on how much money the government wanted to collect and the extent to which it wanted to drive down use. VAT would also be levied on cannabis if it was legalised.

Savings on justice

The Treasury's analysis concluded that legalisation could save:

£18m to the police
£24m to the courts
£9m in community sentences
£3m to the probation service
£2m to prisons
It pointed to research concluding that legalisation could have a small impact on the NHS costs. The research speculated on a range of outcomes between a saving for the health service of £16m and a cost of £128m.


Cont with comments -

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...e-hundreds-of-millions-in-taxes-a6691556.html

 

[slimvictor]

Great, but that is not why it should be legalized.
It should be legalized for human freedom to explore consciousness, to relieve pain, and to use the plants that nature has put on this earth.
Also, to stop putting people in jail for using drugs.

 

[dopamimetic]

Great, but that is not why it should be legalized.
It should be legalized for human freedom to explore consciousness, to relieve pain, and to use the plants that nature has put on this earth.
Also, to stop putting people in jail for using drugs.

Yes, fully agree, but in today's unfortunately ignorant capitalistic world the tax thing could be more promising to get it through. I'm happy to see that sometimes sober facts nevertheless get attention, in times where common sense seems to be chronically out of stock.. And the fact that legalizing would drain so much income and structures of organized crime, not only with marijuana but even more so with things like cocaine, heroine ... they could save million's lives, billions of tax income wasted for prohibition and senseless police activities, all that ...

Portugal has made the first step by decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of any drugs. They did not see an increase in drug consumption or addiction.
The world should finally look on the bright side of things instead of always looking for the catches.. this makes me so sad. We have such endless opportunities in our 21st century, and people are busy to sabotage anything possible. (Yeah, this point of view has been proudly presented by Research Chemicals® in a previously suicidally depressed individual.)

 

[manboychef]

I agree with dopamimetic. Unfortunately, the revenue could be the deciding factor on whether or not it is decriminalized. The only real problem I see is that so many government agencies get their funding through prohibition. Basically they would have to scale down the police force (or they would have to investigate actual crimes), scale down the amount of prosecutors and public defense attorneys as well as defunding a lot of our prisons and jails. In the united states quite a number of those prisons are privately owned, so I believe you would be hard pressed to take any money out of the hands of investors.

Slimvictor is right as well. It should be a basic human right to be able to make use of the plants that are available to us. Instead we have a bloated cigarette and alcohol lobbying team as well as big pharma to compete with. Personally, I take xanax. I would love to be able to find a strain of cannabis that would help mitigate my anxiety instead of a pill that has so many inherent risks.