As long as you ignore the whole tax revenue part.
I oppose the use of sin taxes to fund our government. I hope most people would agree with me on that.
Tax revenue is used as a benefit for legalization. It feels like a flawed argument, but it still aligns with where I would like to be.
The slippery slope argument applies here too: should our freedom be tied to tax revenue? Sure, it works for some drugs. Does it work for our other inalienable rights?
We can't even agree on cap and trade which is so watered down that it essentially gives polluters a free pass. Can we really have a serious discussion about 'user fees on things with significant social costs"?
Maybe we ought to disincentivize marijuana use. I agree. I don't know what to do with that money. However, I strongly believe that we should not take that money and use it for anything beneficial to the society or to the tax collector. Doing so will mean we will no longer disincentivize what we said we'd disincentivize. It just becomes a tax on a minority.
"One area where legal marijuana has reaped unexpectedly large benefits is state tax revenue. Colorado, Washington, and Oregon all impose significant excise taxes on recreational marijuana, along with standard state sales taxes, other local taxes, and licensing fees. As seen in Figure 25, Colorado collects well over $10 million per month from recreational marijuana alone.91 In 2015 the state generated a total of $135 million in recreational marijuana revenue, $35 million of which was earmarked for school construction projects. These figures are above some pre-legalization forecasts, although revenue growth was disappointingly sluggish during the first few months of sales.92 A similar story has unfolded in Washington, as illustrated in Figure 26, where recreational marijuana generated approximately $70 million in tax revenue in the first year of sales93—double the original revenue forecast.94 Oregon only began taxing recreational marijuana in January 2016, so data are still preliminary; however, state officials report revenues of $14.9 million so far, well above the initial estimate of $2.0 million to $3.0 million for the entire calendar year95 The tax revenues in these states may decline."
Significant growth of tax revenue after legalization will only happen if the delta of people interested in cannabis and people who already have medical marijuana cards is large enough.
I am not opposing legalization by any means, but in the age of $49 medical evaluations via Skype what are the chances there's a huge market that's not been covered under current, fairly liberal, regime?