Top 4 Reasons to Support Cannabis

1) SIGNIFICANT COST SAVINGS

Cost of incarceration (per year for cannabis):

New Jersey	$120 Million [1]
United States	$1.3 Billion [2]

Cost of enforcement (per year for cannabis):

New Jersey	$143 Million [3]
United States	$3.6 Billion [4]

“Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." - William F. Buckley Jr. (American Conservative Author & Commentator; Founder of National Review Magazine in 1955) [5]

2) ANNUAL TAX REVENUE

• New Jersey = more than 300 Million [6]

• USA = up to 28 Billion [7]

• Local = up to 60 Million [8]

Which can go towards education, drug treatment, healthcare, lower property taxes, OR all of the above!

"I’ve been smoking marijuana for 44 years now, and… I think it’s a tremendous blessing." - Lester Grinspoon (Psychiatry Professor at Harvard University; Former Senior Psychiatrist at MA Mental Health Center) [9]

3) CANNABIS IS HEALTHIER [THAN THE ALTERNATIVES]

• Far safer than alcohol & tobacco. [10]

• Virtually impossible to overdose. [11]

• Effectively treats: chronic pain [12], some cancers [13], anxiety [14], rheumatism [15], PTSD [16], nausea [17], and more! [18]

• Deters domestic violence. [19]

• combats the growing opioid epidemic. [20]

“[Marijuana] doesn’t have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works… [I]t is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can as a medical community, care that could involve marijuana. We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that." - Dr. Sanjay Gupta M.D. (Award-winning Neurosurgeon, Professor, and Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN) [21]

4) SOCIAL INJUSTICE

• 24,689 Marijuana possession arrests in New Jersey in 2014, and has increased steadily since. [22]

• Black residents are 3x more likely than white residents to get arrested for marijuana possession (despite similar usage rates). [23]

• 9/10 marijuana arrests are users, not dealers. [24]

• Marijuana laws were created largely as an excuse to disrupt minority communities. [25]

“We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities... We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." - John Ehrlichman (Domestic Policy Chief for President Richard Nixon) [26]

IN THE END, any honest and reasonable look at the evidence proves that the costs of legalization cannot compare with the potential benefits, savings, and revenue.

FULL CITATIONS

[1] New Jersey Cost Incarceration: New Jersey Jail Population Analysis - Drug Policy Alliance [2] U.S. Cost Incarceration: Marijuana Legalization - What Everyone Needs to Know (book) [3] New Jersey Cost Enforcement: Unequal & Unfair - New Jersey's War on Marijuana Users - ACLU

[4] U.S. Cost Enforcement: The War On Marijuana In Black And White - ACLU

[5] Quote (Buckley)

[6] New Jersey Revenue Projections

[7] U.S. Revenue Projections [8] Local Revenue Projections

[9] Quote (Grinspoon) [10] Alcohol & Tobacco

[11] Overdose

[12] Chronic Pain

[13] Cancer [14] Rheumatism [15] PTSD [16] Nausea [17] Anxiety

[18] Others

[19] Opioids [20] Domestic Violence [21] Quote (Gupta) [22] Cannabis Arrests: Unequal & Unfair: New Jersey's War on Marijuana Users - ACLU [23] Black Arrests: Unequal & Unfair: New Jersey's War on Marijuana Users - ACLU [24] Cannabis Users: Unequal & Unfair: New Jersey's War on Marijuana Users - ACLU [25] Disrupt Minorities [26] Quote (Ehrlichman)