Marijuana Causes Mental Illness?

galoisien
Sat, 10 May 2008 15:38:28 +0000

we are too financially strained at the the moment to care?



Basic economics. You commit to economic transaction X if MB >= MC and repeat it until MB = MC (taking into account opportunity cost).

In this case it’s not that society is financially strained (in the relative sense), but MC simply exceeds MB in this case, not in the least because the deprivation of liberty is a direct detriment to society, which in turn has other economic effects. Maybe when 90% of people are living in palatial residences the opportunity cost will go down enough to justify it, but not until then.

You are resorting to line by line rebuttals here. Your position has been lost. Please mature.



why exactly should they be set free(or get off easy)? because marijuana jails a large portion of productive members of society? because they are productive? lol



BECAUSE MARGINAL COSTS EXCEED MARGINAL BENEFIT

Justice is founded (by social contract and rule of law) on what is beneficial to society. Hence murder and thievery are outlawed because they result in net detriment to society (the latter reducing allocative efficiency, the former resulting loss of human capital, both of which undermine confidence).

Thus when a body, entrusted with enforcing portions of the social contract, considers whether to initiate prosecution against people who commit to a certain action, they must evaluate 1) what detriment is posed by that individual to the social contract 2) the marginal costs the proposed penalty would cause 3) whether the penalty would repair the initial detriment and yield a net benefit over the penalty’s marginal costs (which would include direct detriments and opportunity cost).

Prosecution of cannabis users fails on all three points.