As the healthcare monster waxes too large to handle and costs grow too out of control to bear, a surprising yet sublime savior appears: legalization of marijuana.  The legalization of this plant would have such far-reaching, profound affects, it would be difficult to quantify.  However, the affect it would have on the healthcare system could be one of it’s greatest gifts. 

Were marijuana to be legalized and sold like beer and cigarettes it could also be taxed like beer and cigarettes.  This increase in state and federal taxes alone could solve our healthcare crisis without burdensome taxation on the rich and businessess which provide employment and salaries.  In fact, rather than burdening the system, it would create new businesses, springing up from the underground to become legitimate and tax paying places of employment.  There would be farmers, manufaturers, distributers, and retail stores.  These in turn would bring business to secondary and tertiary characters, from fertilizer providers to truck drivers and real estate brokers, all of which are tax paying entities. 

However, the rabbit hole goes deeper still.  Part of healthcare reform will come, not from new money garnered from tax-payers, but from the redirection of taxes already garnered but earmarked for spending on the “war on drugs”.  According to the Virginia Department of Corrections, the average annual cost to taxpayers to house an inmate is $24,332 (http://www.vadoc.state.va.us/about/facts/managementInformationSummaries/2008.pdf). In 2002 alone, the number of inmates incarcerated on drug charges were 156,000 and “represent the largest source of jail population growth.” (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002)  That comes out to about $3,900,000,000 per year of tax payer money.  This is on top of the 2.4 trillion spent on healthcare costs annually and the $600 per second ($18,921,600,000 per year) on the other parts of the war on drugs (DEA, local law enforcement, attorneys, court fees, etc). (http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml & http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2008/03/drug-clock-money-spent-on-the-war-on-drugs-2008/). In these volatile and rocky economic times, where thousands of jobs are lost every week and people have lost homes, pensions,everything; can we really afford to keep this up? 

With the healthcare and economic crises we face, we need to take a serious look at all of the alternatives and come up with a comprehensive agenda that incorporates both traditional and non-traditional methods to bring about lasting change and a healthcare system that works and is reflective of our great nation.