ill Crazy, Jameson Interview). $7.5 billion to $10 billion of this is spent solely on enforcement. Approximately 600,000 people were arrested per year on marijuana possession charges between 1995 and 1998. This amounts to one arrest every 45 seconds. (Still Crazy, FBI:1 214, FBI:2 222, FBI:3 210). Each arrest requires two officers and, assuming that these were all simple cases involving no extra resources, takes about two hours to process. As a result, this adds up to approximately 2,400,000 police man-hours per year. When one factors in investigations and prosecutions the number of dollars increases to nine figures. On top of this, it costs taxpayers $23,000 annually to incarcerate a marijuana offender (Still Crazy). In the case of Mr. Covar, it will cost $258 a day to house him. This translates to $660,000 for the entire seven years (Hodson). The public does not care much about prosecuting harmless marijuana users and is even less enthusiastic about spending tax dollars to do so. According to Sharon Tracy, a Georgia Southern University criminal justice professor, The public is pretty apathetic about marijuana. As long as its not hurting them, or they dont think that the grower is selling it to kids, most people are pretty tolerant of it (qtd. in Stepzinski). Federal statistics show that marijuana generates billions of dollars annually and is the fourth largest cash crop in the nation. As of February 2000, marijuana costs about $2,400 per pound in Georgia. When this is compared to legal crops, such as tobacco, $1.67 per pound, cotton $.46 per pound, peanuts, $.26 per pound, and corn, $2.10 per pound, one can see why it is very profitable for small farmers. The authorities destroyed 32,022 of the marijuana plants found in Georgia. They were potentially worth $77 million (Stepzinski). Apparently, the federal government has not shown any interest in attempting to accurately calculate the cost of prohibition, as it would not be able to jus...
