All savings occur on the state level

States spend 5 billion a year in marijuana enforcement

As shown at the bottom of Table 2, total state and local government expenditure for enforcement of marijuana prohibition was $5.1 billion for 2000. This is an overstatement of the savings in government expenditure that would result from legalization, however, for two reasons. First, under prohibition the police sometimes seize assets from those arrested for marijuana violations (financial accounts, cars, boats, land, houses, and the like), with the proceeds used to fund police and prosecutors.[12] Second, under prohibition some marijuana offenders pay fines, which partially offsets the expenditure required to arrest, convict and incarcerate these offenders. The calculations in Appendix B, however, show that this offsetting revenue has been at most $100 million per year in recent years at the state and local level. This implies a net savings of criminal justice resources from marijuana legalization of $5.0 billion in 2000. Adjusting for inflation implies savings of $5.3 billion in 2003.[13] [14] [15]

A2: MARIJUANA BAD IMPACTS

1. Their impact is empirically denied- Millions of Americans are smoking Marijuana now

2. No impact to Decriminalizing Marijuana- multiple warrants

- No Increase in use
- Decrease use of harder drugs

- Frees up Government Resources

NORML 02

(The National Organization of Reforming Marijuana Laws is a nonprofit lobbying organization working to legalize marijuana, stop arrests of smokers, provide educational research, and legal information on  marijuana, 12/16,

“Marijuana Decriminalization & Its Impact on Use” http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3383)

***This article citing multiple studies done on Marijuana use and decriminalization done by the US government, Journals of Medicine and Universities

"The available evidence suggests that removal of the prohibition against possession itself (decriminalization) does not increase cannabis use. ... This prohibition inflicts harms directly and is costly. Unless it can be shown that the removal of criminal penalties will increase use of other harmful drugs, ... it is difficult to see what society gains."
- Evaluating alternative cannabis regimes. British Journal of Psychiatry. February 2001. Introduction Findings from dozens of government-commissioned and academic studies published over the past 25 years overwhelmingly affirm that liberalizing marijuana penalties does not lead to an increase in marijuana consumption or affect adolescent attitudes toward drug use. Since 1973, 12 state legislatures -- Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon -- have enacted versions of marijuana decriminalization. In each of these states, marijuana users no longer face jail time (nor in most cases, arrest or criminal records) for the possession or use of small amounts of marijuana. Internationally, many states and nations have enacted similar policies. The following studies examine these decriminalization policies and their impact on marijuana use. The studies' conclusions are listed chronologically.  U.S. Studies "In sum, there is little evidence that decriminalization of marijuana use necessarily leads to a substantial increase in marijuana use." - National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). 1999. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press: Washington, D.C., 102. "The Law Revision Commission has examined laws from other states that have reduced penalties for small amounts of marijuana and the impact of those laws in those states. ... Studies of [those] states found (1) expenses for arrest and prosecution of marijuana possession offenses were significantly reduced, (2) any increase in the use of marijuana in those states was less that increased use in those states that did not decrease their penalties and the largest proportionate increase occurred in those states with the most severe penalties, and (3) reducing the penalties for marijuana has virtually no effect on either choice or frequency of the use of alcohol or illegal 'harder' drugs such as cocaine."  - Connecticut Law Review Commission. 1997. Drug Policy in Connecticut and Strategy Options: Report to the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly. State Capitol: Hartford. "There is no strong evidence that decriminalization affects either the choice or frequency of use of drugs, either legal (alcohol) or illegal (marijuana and cocaine)." - C. Thies and C. Register. 1993.Decriminalization of Marijuana and the Demand for Alcohol, Marijuana and Cocaine. The Social Sciences Journal 30: 385-399. "In contrast with marijuana use, rates of other illicit drug use among ER [emergency room] patients were substantially higher in states that did not decriminalize marijuana use. The lack of decriminalization might have encouraged greater use of drugs that are even more dangerous than marijuana."  - K. Model. 1993. The effect of marijuana decriminalization on hospital emergency room episodes: 1975-1978. Journal of the American Statistical Association 88: 737-747, as cited by the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine in Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. [6] "The available evidence indicates that the decriminalization of marijuana possession had little or no impact on rates of use.Although rates of marijuana use increased in those U.S. states [that] reduced maximum penalties for possession to a fine, the prevalence of use increased at similar or higher rates in those states [that] retained more severe penalties. There were also no discernible impacts on the health care systems. On the other hand, the so-called 'decriminalization' measures did result in substantial savings in the criminal justice system."  - E. Single. 1989. The Impact of Marijuana Decriminalization: An Update. Journal of Public Health 10: 456-466. "Overall, the preponderance of the evidence which we have gathered and examined points to the conclusion that decriminalization has had virtually no effect either on the marijuana use or on related attitudes and beliefs about marijuana use among American young people. The data show no evidence of any increase, relative to the control states, in the proportion of the age group who ever tried marijuana. In fact, both groups of experimental states showed a small, cumulative net decline in annual prevalence after decriminalization."  - L. Johnson et al. 1981. Marijuana Decriminalization: The Impact on Youth 1975-1980. Monitoring the Future, Occasional Paper Series, paper 13, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan: Ann Arbor. "Consumption appears to be unaffected, or affected only minimally by decriminalization, and most people believe that it has had little impact. Further, decriminalization has proven to be administratively and economically advantageous for state law enforcement

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