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  2 0 Strang First, let's get one fact straight - there is no way police officer's in WA cost $22/hr. I am a controller in an Electronic Mfg company - the basic cost of our lowest paid employee is $22/hr. For any law enforcement I would start off with at least $50 PLUS add equipment, vehicle, real estate, office space, administration (they need mgmt right - at least that is what the police chief's say). I would suggest that a burdened rate would be well over $100/hr - that might be low in Seattle/Spokane. Now we are talking about real money!!! The issue is - how do tax payers want their money spent - attacking and encaging peaceful citizens who are smoking flowers - or actually providing some benefit to the citizenry.... I know many of the Police Chiefs (albeit not all since I had the opportunity to meet the very cool Chief of Blaine who understands what the priorities are) like beating up people who smoke flowers - you know easy to do, high budget item - typically small minded special interest, self-centered profiteering mind set... Aner answered in 420: The Straight Dope About Pot over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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  2 0 Chief Stamper is correct: it's a bundle. This state prosecutes 12,000 citizens a year on average for misdemeanor and felony marijuana charges. The best estimate our campaign has been able to come up with is that all of that costs the state about $100 million a year (some years even more) when you fold together the hard costs of arrest, prosecution, defense and whatnot with the soft costs of people losing jobs (and the state missing tax revenue as a result) and having their lives disrupted and so on. $100 million is a staggering waste of money in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Philip Dawdy answered in 420: The Straight Dope About Pot over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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  2 0 Excellent question. The unscientific answer is, a bundle. I don't have time to do the math, sorry. You'd have to take Alison's arrest figures for the state of Washington, calculate the number of arrestees who went to jail (vs. being handed a ticket), were charged, went to court, were convicted, went to jail or prison. Figure out how much time is involved at each step, total up patrol officer, detective, prosecutor, (possibly) public defender, judge and other court officers, correctional officials' investment in the process, add in at least a portion of the jail and prison costs necessary to build and maintain cells for high-end marijuana inmates... Even a simple infraction or misdemeanor ticket entails significant costs. Time to write it, seize and impound the evidence, process it through the system. It would make a terrific dissertation topic... Of course, coarse generalizations of costs may be inferred. But not off the top of my overtaxed head. Anyone else out there? Sponsors of the initiative? If not, it's not a bad time to put a band of (volunteer) number-crunchers to work. Money talks (you can quote me). normstamper answered in 420: The Straight Dope About Pot over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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  1 0 When evaluating the "savings" that would result from making marijuana legal again, consider also the opportunity cost of jobs lost (termination due to drug testing, not being hired due to drug convictions) and education missed (due to disqualification for federal student financial aid). In their paper, "The Consequences and Costs of Marijuana Prohibition", University of Washington professors Katherine Beckett and Steve Herbert assess collective costs: 1) fiscal & organizational, 2) asset forfeiture & enforcement of marijuana laws, 3) public safety, and also human costs: 1) financial, 2) social, psychological, & physical costs to individuals and families. cdc answered in 420: The Straight Dope About Pot over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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