Weed Op Ed

For the first time since prohibition began 75 years ago, recreational marijuana use is legal. In Colorado and Washington State, any lawful citizen of the age 21 and over can walk into a Marijuana shop and purchase an eighth of weed for an average of $55, once outside they can legally smoke it. Nearly 30 million Americans smoked pot did last year. Over 25 million of them smoked it illegally and have committed a criminal offense -New York Penal - Article 221 - § 221.05 Unlawful Possession of Marijuana.
Colorado’s universities are reporting a spike in enrollment, with University of Colorado seeing a 30% increase in applications and Denver University experiencing an 81% increase over five years.  This is happening as the National Student Clearinghouse reports a nationwide drop in college enrollments over the past two years.
College “Spring Breakers” are now flocking to Colorado.  According to an analysis by Priceline.com, Denver trails only Las Vegas and New Orleans in being booked for Spring Break by people with .edu (college) email addresses.  Denver is more popular than traditional Spring Break locales, Florida, Texas and Cancun, Mexico.
Colorado pot shops still report that about half of the IDs they check are from out-of-state, despite the lack of most anywhere for a tourist to smoke pot legally.  Public consumption is banned and almost all hotels are non-smoking.  But Rich Grant, spokesman for Denver’s visitor and convention bureau, says he’s heard of hotel guests asking about the fine for smoking in a non-smoking room, then paying the $250 up front.
The prohibition for alcohol didn’t work and neither will it for marijuana. Marijuana prohibition costs US taxpayers nearly $42 billion dollars per year in criminal justice costs and in lost tax revenues, according to an economic analysis. $42 billion dollars! If our government collected taxes on it instead of spending absorbent amounts of money fighting it, it would create large amounts of revenue to be spent on...