Tax and Regulate

What are the four biggest reasons
Americans agree that that people are concerned about

our current marijuana regulating marijuana?
laws aren’t working.
It’s time for a system of 1. “Marijuana use is wrong.” Whatever one’s moral
beliefs about marijuana consumption, marijuana
laws have caused far more harm than marijuana use
strict regulation. itself: marijuana prohibition drained precious criminal
justice resources from our communities, made it difficult
to keep marijuana from our children, and destroyed the
Please lend your voice! lives and families of otherwise law-abiding citizens.
Check the boxes next

to the ways in which 2. “Marijuana regulation would send the wrong
message to teenagers.” Regulation would reduce
teen access to marijuana by taking it off the streets and
Our
you would like to help: regulating it, and sending adults to prison if they sell
marijuana to young people. According to the White
House, more than half of U.S. teens try marijuana before
marijuana
graduating from high school. In the Netherlands, where
marijuana is sold in indoor establishments to adults who
are carded for age, teen marijuana use is only 28%.
laws aren’t
® Please e-mail me occasional updates and
opportunities to make a difference. My
3. “Marijuana regulation might increase DUI-
related deaths on the roadways.” Driving while
intoxicated would still be illegal. And people who want
working.
e-mail address is:
to use marijuana are already using it; there are few adults
(Please write your address clearly.)

who would start using marijuana if it were regulated.
It’s time
4. “Marijuana is a ‘gateway’ or ‘stepping stone’ to
® I would like to make a financial

contribution to the Marijuana Policy
Project Foundation, which is working
hard drugs.” It’s the criminalization of marijuana
that’s the gateway to hard drugs. When adults enter
a liquor store to buy alcohol, they don’t find cocaine
sitting on the shelf next to bottles of vodka; similarly,
for a new
for sensible, effective marijuana
policies.
® $25
if marijuana were regulated, adults who buy marijuana
would not be exposed to hard drugs (as they currently
are, via drug dealers).
approach.
® $40
® $100 It’s time for a NEW APPROACH:
® $500
marijuana regulation and control.
® $______________
For more information, please contact: Marijuana Policy Project Foundation

P.O. Box 77492
Please return this completed form to:
Capitol Hill
Marijuana Policy Project Foundation Washington, D.C. 20013
P.O. Box , Capitol Hill www.MarijuanaPolicy.org
Marijuana Policy Project Foundation
Washington, D.C. 
info@mpp.org
www.mpp.org
305
Our marijuana laws aren’t working.
In 2003, there were a What Regulation Would Not Do:
Our failed marijuana laws cost taxpayers $7.7 record 755,186 marijuana ✖ It would not allow marijuana possession or
billion a year,1 keep police from focusing on real access for those under the age of 21.
crimes, and fail to keep marijuana away from arrests in the U.S.—
minors. greater than the number ✖ It would not allow driving under the influ-
ence of marijuana, which would remain a
Regulation is the answer. of arrests for all violent crime and would be treated like other DUI
It’s time for a new approach—strict regulation

crimes combined. offenses.
and control—to reduce the criminal market and More arrests are made for marijuana than
lower teen use. for all violent crimes combined.
Taxing and regulating marijuana would:
Marijuana use is far higher in the United States Marijuana arrests are at an all-time high of
than in the Netherlands, where marijuana is ✔ Make our communities safer. Removing 755,186 a year—which is one arrest every 42
sold in regulated establishments instead of on marijuana from the criminal market would seconds. That’s more arrests for marijuana than
the criminal market. In the U.S., 41% of people free up police time so police officers can for all violent crimes combined.
over 12 have tried marijuana—versus 17% in focus on violent crimes, property crimes,
the Netherlands.2 and people who drive under the influence And 88% of these arrests are for simple posses-
of alcohol, marijuana, or any other sion, not sale or manufacture.4
substance. Tax dollars would be used to
Drug dealers incarcerate real criminals who threaten What are the health effects of marijuana?
public safety.
don’t card for Unlike with alcohol and tobacco, no one has
age. If marijuana ✔ Reduce teen marijuana use. Unlike drug ever died from using marijuana. And while
dealers, licensed vendors would ensure marijuana isn’t risk-free, its risks are lower than
were taxed and that teens could not purchase marijuana ...
just as states that have implemented strict
those of many legal drugs.
regulated, licensed controls on underage tobacco purchases Alcohol Tobacco Marijuana
establishments would have seen sales of tobacco to minors fall

dramatically.3 Can cause
have an incentive to ✔ Save taxpayer dollars and generate
stroke? Yes Yes No
card for age, because revenue. Each year, the government spends
Overdose
$7.7 billion to arrest and lock up nonviolent
selling to minors marijuana users. Taxing marijuana would
can cause
death?
Yes No No
would cause the generate millions in tax revenues instead of

profits for drug dealers. Number
establishments to ✔ Provide a legal source of marijuana for
of deaths
annually
100,000 440,000 0
lose their licenses seriously ill patients who currently must

resort to buying marijuana from drug Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and
to sell to adults. dealers. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base, Institute
of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, 1999.
1. Miron, Jeffrey A., The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition,

December 2004.
2. Trimbos Institute, Report to the EMCDDA by the Reitox National Focal Point,
The Netherlands Drug Situation, 2002. 3. Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Study 2003. 4. FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 2003.

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What are the four biggest reasons

Americans agree that that people are concerned about

Check the boxes next

(Please write your address clearly.)

® I would like to make a ﬁnancial

For more information, please contact: Marijuana Policy Project Foundation

It’s time for a new approach—strict regulation

regulated, licensed controls on underage tobacco purchases Alcohol Tobacco Marijuana

establishments would have seen sales of tobacco to minors fall

would cause the generate millions in tax revenues instead of

lose their licenses seriously ill patients who currently must

1. Miron, Jeﬀrey A., The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition,

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