A sense of calm swept over the Tufts campus on Saturday. Surely the end of a 24-hour lockdown played a large role in easing people's mind, but so did the day's date: April 20.
Though the date has no official name, 4/20 is essentially "weed day" in cannabis culture, as marijuana users celebrate the illegal - but decriminalized - substance with festivals, rallies, protests and simply chilling on Boston Common. From San Francisco to Medford, clouds of pungent smoke rose from apartments, houses, dorms, backyards, public places and just about anywhere not directly in the view of police.
Even then, police tend to turn a blind eye on the frowned-upon practice on this day in particular. Why arrest a few hundred college kids on such a beautiful day?
In Colorado and Washington, however, law enforcement doesn't look the other way - they don't have to. Voters approved measures to legalize the use of marijuana in small amounts in these states in November following proposals that were closely followed and widely debated nationwide.
Many states, as well as the District of Columbia, have already approved marijuana for medical use, but the substance has remained illegal on the federal level. Since 1970, the Controlled Substances Act has declared that cannabis has a high potential for abuse and no medical use, in direct conflict with the numerous state-level laws that have been passed.
Still, the case for national legalization has picked up strength in recent years, and not just among marijuana smokers. Numerous studies have noted the potential economic benefits - see, it all ties in - to legalizing marijuana, which would allow the government to regulate the drug in the same way it regulates alcohol and tobacco. A Washington state study estimates that legalization would bring in nearly $2 billion in revenue in the next five years, while other studies have claimed that legalization would produce anywhere from $8.7 to $40 billion in federal and state tax revenue every year.
Marijuana legalization would not only generate revenue for our states and country, but it would also cut back on trying and imprisoning non-violent drug users. Prison overcrowding is a huge problem that has bankrupted numerous cities and states. Though I hardly think they should be putting offenders back on the streets, states can remove some of these low-level criminals - drug users that have been imprisoned for possession - and maintain order by legalizing marijuana. It would also allow police officers and law enforcement officials to focus on more dangerous drugs, like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines.
Legalizing marijuana would also mean border-states can control the transportation and distribution of the drug, turning a source of smuggling and crime into one of revenue and regulation. It would also cut off key sources of cash flow for drug cartels that rely on drug traffic to keep their operations afloat.
Of course, the issue is far more complex than I have made it out to be. Though marijuana has been proven to be non-habit-forming, its use can still have a dangerous - and, in rare cases, life-changing - effect on people. Drug crime would not simply disappear either: A teenager was shot and killed in Colorado on Saturday, and though the incident was chalked up to gang-violence, it does not bode well for the national movement.
As much as I want this to be an economic issue, it is not: it's a social one. The numbers - billions in revenue and billions more in saved costs - are there. But whether or not the American public will accept "stoners" into everyday life is a very different question.
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Walt Laws-MacDonald is a sophomore majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at Walt.Laws_MacDonald@tufts.edu.
