Yes, let’s legalise cannabis – but not for tax revenue
One of the long running shouting matches out there is over the legalisation of cannabis. It’s worth remembering that it’s only just over a century since it was actually legal. Actually, back in Victorian England everything was legal, yes including the morphine and opium. It was concern over people being able to enjoy themselves which led to both the drugs bans and that idiot Prohibition over in the US.
Given that cannabis doesn’t harm anyone why not undo that historic mistake and make it legal again?
The report from the Institute of Economic Affairs has valued the UK’s black market in cannabis at £2.6bn.
OK, there’s quite a lot of it going on already then.
A report from the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) says decriminalising the Class B drug would also lead to savings for the police and other public services.
Well, yes, there’s an awful lot of idiocy that we’ll be able to stop doing.
Margaret Thatcher’s favourite free-market thinktank has called on the government to legalise cannabis, arguing that the move could save more than £1bn generated from extra taxes and other savings in public services.
The thing is though that we don’t really want to do it for the tax take. The point being that we’re only here talking about consenting adults. And it’s a basic matter of freedom and liberty that consenting adults should be allowed to get up to what adults consent to. Sure, some of these things will be wasteful – say, Simon Cowell – some will be damaging – Simon Cowell – and yet that’s the whole point of freedom itself. We get to do as we wish, even Simon Cowell. The only truly moral constraint is when our activities prevent others from enjoying those same rights.
So, legalise cannabis just in order to legalise cannabis.
As the report itself notes, if we do legalise it then we can tax it. Actually, we could tax it pretty highly and still have it being cheaper than the illegal stuff is today. And we’ve got to gain our tax revenue from somewhere. So, yes, tax it and collect some money.
But the reason for the legalisation is because there’s no reason it should be illegal.
Posted: 30th, June 2018 | In: Money, News, Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
