INFORMATION FOR INDIANA STATE LEGISLATORS
When deliberating the issues surrounding marijuana legislation, you may find it useful to consider the following points:
- Indiana spends approximately $150 Million dollars per year arresting Marijuana users. This does not include the cost of incarceration.
- Relegalization would free up police resources to deal with violent crime.
- Colorado reports nearly $19 Million dollars in tax revenue for the first half of 2014.
- Washington State expects $25 Million dollars in new tax revenue by July, 2015.
- Relegalization does not lead to greater Marijuana use.
- Peer pressure causes chemical drug use, not Marijuana.
- Treats a plethora of illnesses, cures many types of cancer with no objectionable side effects.
- Marijuana is safer than alcohol.
- 23 states and D.C. Have some sort of medical Marijuana program, Including Michigan, Illinois.
- Marijuana is less addictive than coffee.
- There has never been a death from consumption of Marijuana.
- Regulating Marijuana helps keep it out of the hands of children. Street dealers don’t ask for I.D.
- There are over 23,000 studies showing the safety of Marijuana and its efficacy as a medicine.
- States have the right to set their own policies on Marijuana (Conant v Walters)
- The Federal Government today still provides a few patients with access to Medical Marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi. These are surviving patients of the government’s decades-old Compassionate IND program who were in that program prior to 1992 when such access was closed to new applicants.
You may also find the following articles helpful:
- An Examination of the Gateway Hypothesis
- Review of Evidence on Cannabis and Psychomotor Performance with Implications for Public Policy
- Study Indicates Legalized Medical Marijuana Does Not Impact Teen Use Rates
- Studies posted by Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC - San Diego
- 2012 Analysis and Detailed Data on Marijuana Use and Arrests
- Study on Antibacterial Cannabinoids from Cannabis Sativa
- Study Showing Medicinal Marijuana Can Be Made Even Safer for Immunocompromised Patients
- Article on Legalization and State Tax Revenue